U.S. ADDS 216,000 JOBS & U.S. LAYOFFS LOWEST SINCE 1995

These were a couple of very encouraging headlines starting out the second quarter of 2011. Not only were these figures higher than expected, but unemployment also dipped to its lowest level since 2008. In a recent article OC Register writer Jonathan Lansner had a similar headline, "Job Growth Could Cure Ailing Market." The gist of the article is really found in the Beacon Economics updated housing forecast for California. Research manager Jordan Levine finds some optimism that is driven by, "rising employment and incomes, which we project to grow by between 4% and 6% on the income side and 2% to 3% on the employment side." In other words, people really do need jobs to buy a house. And their income needs to be proportional to the price. Something the sub-prime and stated loan programs seemed to forget. The other encouraging things was that these jobs were "real" jobs; not seasonal, not minimum wage, but substantial jobs in technology, import, service, management, and manufacturing. Originally the Fed thought job recovery would be 5 complete years. Statistics now suggest that job recovery will happen by installment, both in types of jobs and location. Remember, it is projected (see last month for details) that California may be a little slower than some parts of the country, since we were hit so hard by the loan meltdown, but Southern California, specifically Orange County, was projected to emerge first.