Piggington's Econo-Almanac

More Mixed Signals from the Job Market

rich — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:21:39 -0500

The annual change in the number of people employed at San Diego companies improved again last month. Between November 2008 and November 2009, local companies shed 52,200 jobs, a decline of 4.0 percent. Which, as miserable as it may sound, is the best year-over-year job number in six months:
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Dueling Job Surveys

rich — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:08:49 -0500

A commenter over at Piggington (my own little internet stomping ground) raised an interesting point in regard to last month's article on San Diego employment . The reader noted that the monthly data I cite measures the number of jobs held in San Diego with no regard for whether the job holders
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The Housing Battleship-Turned-Party Boat

rich — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:30:54 -0500

A while back, I noticed a funny thing about the year-over-year rate of change in the Case-Shiller index of San Diego home prices. It seemed that movements in the annual price change rate from positive to negative or from negative to positive provided a good indicator that the long-term price trend
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October 2009 Resale Data Rodeo

rich — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:54:23 -0500

It looks like the spring/summer rally has continued into autumn, as the median price per square foot was up 1.5% from the prior month: read more
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Divining Case-Shiller

rich — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:53:25 -0400

The Case-Shiller index is the most accurate measure of aggregate home price changes, for reasons long-since described here . But it's been an ongoing gripe of mine (and everyone's) that the index lags so badly. The data that was just released a couple days ago on October 27, for instance, only t
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Case-Shiller's Summer Super-Bounce Continued in August

rich — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:25:05 -0400

Nobody should be very surprised that the Case-Shiller index rose again in August. This time around, the long-suffering low tier turned in the best performance with a robust 2.5 percent increase. The middle tier rose 1.6 percent for the month and the high tier increased .3 percent, with the aggr
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Foreclosures Edge Down Again

rich — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:32:40 -0400

Here, a little later than usual, is the monthly foreclosure activity update. The following chart shows that default notices and trustee sales, respectively the initial and final stages of foreclosure, both declined last month. But both defaults and trustee sales remain at levels that are
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Housing-Related Job Sectors Taking the Big Long-Term Hit

rich — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:42:43 -0400

Let's take a slightly different look at the construction, finance/real estate, and retail job sectors. I have long highlighted these three industries in my analysis because they were directly involved in the housing bubble, benefitting from the respective frenzies for building homes, lending funds
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Job Losses Shrink for a Second Month

rich — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:13:05 -0400

The rate of year-over-year job losses in San Diego declined again last month, according to the latest estimates from the EDD. Between September 2008 and September 2009, the region lost 52,000 jobs. This is not great, obviously, but it's an improvement over recent months. continue reading
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September 2009 Resale Data Rodeo

rich — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:41:07 -0400

Some have asked what distinguishes a Data Rodeo from a Chartfest or for that matter the rarely seen Chart Extravaganza. The answer, which I will fabricate as I type this sentence, is that Data Rodeos are reserved for the monthly roundup of resale data, whereas the two alternate names are used for
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