Lack of housing inventory is one of the most significant problems facing the real estate industry.
It’s wreaking havoc on home buyers, real estate companies, and a host of ancillary organizations who depend upon housing churn to be successful.
Did you know the exact opposite is happening in the job market? And it’s happening with a similar level of intensity.
Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported the recreation of a million new jobs in March alone, double the number of jobs added in February (yes, their stats lag a little).
According to employment economists, there has also been a sharp rise in the number of jobs posted to employment sites.
And the number of companies who are competing for job seeker attention via job advertising has increased significantly in the last two months, as well.
What’s driving these sudden increases?
According to researchers, it’s related to two factors—a reduction in the number of candidates and a reluctance of those candidates to apply.
We are seeing a declining recovery of the unemployment rate; many are still in fact out of work but are no longer searching for or applying to jobs.
We are also seeing Google searches for jobs drop off and an absolute cratering of apply rates (apply rates are the conversion rate on a job ad from clicks to apply)
Ultimately, supply is far outpacing demand in this case.
Why is this happening? We’ll discuss some underlying causes in tomorrow’s Insight.
But this we know for sure—it’s going to be a bumpy ride with lots of competing forces as the economy attempts to recover from the effects of the pandemic.
