The December jobs report was widely misread as evidence of a robust improvement in the month-to-month employment trends. While the report did show signs of amelioration in several key occupations, the headline numbers must be assessed in context. Embedded in the report's details, the increase in transportation payrolls revealed a sharp rise in messenger and courier jobs. Employment in this subsector shot up by 42,200 jobs in December, corresponding with an unprecedented one-month rise of 8.0 percent in total employment in this field. Without these jobs, December's net increase in employment was less than 160,000 jobs.

Why discount the messenger and courier jobs? December's increase relates to a long-term trend that dominates seasonality: more Americans are doing their shopping online. And because so much shopping is done in the weeks before Christmas, courier companies must hire a larger number of seasonal workers. The trend cuts across seasonal shopping patterns, however. As a result, it is not addressed by seasonal adjustments in a predictable way. Following December’s rise, it is likely that we will see a negative contribution to employment from cuts in delivery jobs in January.

Other areas of the employment report call for a qualified assessment, as well. Office-using employment, in particular, persists in falling woefully short of trends in areas such as healthcare. Information jobs and financial services were essentially flat in December. The latter, outsized in its relevance for high-end office demand, remains stuck near its recession low. Positive signs can be found in some of the complementary metrics, such as falling initial unemployment claims and the slow but steady recovery in job openings.

Job Openings Show Growth Outside Office-Using Occupations

An imperfect leading indicator of job growth, data on job openings suggest that the market’s upside potential can be found in generally lower-paying occupations and in areas that exhibit a weaker relationship with office demand. In the aggregate, job openings are currently 2.4 percent of total employment, disconcertingly low by historical standards but well above their recessionary nadir. Private sector openings are 2.5 percent of the job base; consistent with other data sources, public job openings trail all of the major private occupations.

Even from its anaemic level, the count of openings in construction is exceptionally low relative to the current job base. Apartment development is pushing numbers up, but a paucity of other commercial and single-family construction is allowing developers to meet demand without exhausting slack in their available labor resources. Two supersectors, Leisure and Hospitality and Education and Healthcare, lead availabilities. The latter is weighted strongly to healthcare rather than education and is related to demographic and entitlement drivers. Professional and business services are also expanding, though not in the highest wage areas. Financial services trends are weak, as are retail job openings.

Momentum in the labor market is critical if we are to sustain the recovery. Not all jobs are created equal in terms of their implications for space demand, however. Current hiring data, as well as the leading data on openings, show that national gains have been concentrated in areas of employment that are characterized by lower discretionary spending and which are less likely to be located in offices. On the other hand, the income profile of these jobs, and flat wages and salaries, favors apartment demand rather than homeownership.