A CRE Assessment of the April Jobs Report

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that private sector employment jumped by 268,000 jobs in April, the largest one-month increase in just over five years. The gain was offset in small part by a 24,000-job drop in public payrolls, principally in local and state government. While government employment will remain a drag until cyclical and structural budgetary issues are addressed, the private sector is making slow but steady progress in driving overall gains.

There is still a long way to go, of course, especially as it relates to sustainable commercial real estate demand drivers. Of the 8.8 million private sector jobs between 2008 and early 2010, only 2.1 million have been recovered as of April.  The current recovery in the labor market remains the weakest in post-World War II history. At April’s pace, we will return to 2007 employment in 2013; the unemployment rate will normalize much later on account of growth in the workforce.