WASHINGTON, DC-The unemployment figures released by the LaborDepartment
on Friday morning illustrate the stop-and-gonature of this recovery. The US
economy added 67,000 jobslast month, which was more than many economists had forecast.Overall, some 54,000 positions were dropped, many in state andlocal governments. The cumulative affect of these shifts is a risein the
unemployment rate to 9.6% from 9.5% in July--thefirst rise in four
months. The Labor Department alsoreleased revised figures for July. Instead of
131,000positions lost, that number was 54,000.

As usual the Washington DC area, which has posted its fifthconsecutive month of job gains, remained relatively immune from thenational trends. To state the obvious, that is good news for thecommercial real estate industry here, Jones Lang LaSalle's researchdirector, Scott Homa, tells GlobeSt.com. "Over the past year, theMetro Washington, DC region has gained 41,800 jobs, essentiallyin-line with our long term average of creatingapproximately
45,000 jobs per year. This is helping drivedemand for office space, particularly in markets serving thefederal government like NoMa, the Southwest
andSoutheast."

Almost half of the job gains in the Metro DC region wereconcentrated in the
federal government sector, which sawpayrolls rise by 19,700 jobs over the
trailing 12 months,Homa notes. "This government expansion is fuelingthe
positive net absorption we're seeing downtown, aswell as close-in suburbs
like Rosslyn-Ballston andBethesda."