Just updated the employment picture for the greater Chicago area and it’s not pretty. Essentially all the growth of the last decade has been wiped out and the unemployment rate is the highest it has been over that decade. Of course, the housing stock was built (and continues to be built) for employment levels we never achieved. It’s no wonder that housing prices have been on the decline and that we’re starting to see some rational sellers capitulate on this point.

There are now over 350,000 fewer jobs in the Chicago area then at the peak in 2007. We are approaching decade lows and are already lower than we were 10 years ago.

Tags: Chicago employment, Chicago housing market, Chicago real estate market

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 4:42 am by Gary Lucido and is filed under Market Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.