And while this is certainly true, home buyers and folks receiving unemployment benefits both got the word that a bit more money and time is coming their way.
Just on Friday, President Obama signed into law a bill that extends unemployment benefits and the First Time Home Buyers tax credit, which is also being expanded to include benefits for homebuyers who aren't on the first time around buying a home. If purchasing a home is in the cards for you or anyone you know, you can get all the details of the homebuyer's tax credit in this week's Mortgage Market Guide View article below. But first, here are a few additional highlights from last week...including important job market news.
Last week's official Jobs Report showed that there were 190,000 jobs lost in October, higher than the 175,000 job losses that were widely expected. In addition, as you can see in the chart below, the Unemployment Rate rose to 10.2%, quite a bit higher than the 9.9% expected, and the highest Unemployment level since 1983.
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Chart: Unemployment Rate
While this number is bad, what is even more concerning is the "real" unemployment rate being closer to 17.5%. This includes those who have not searched for a job for at least four weeks, known as "discouraged or detached" workers, as well as those desiring full time work but having to settle for part time, the "underemployed". The only ray of sunshine within this anemic report were the upward revisions for August and September, showing 91,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported.
Let's remember, in order to just keep up with population growth - or to keep the ranks of the unemployed from rising - there must be 125,000 jobs created each month. So the latest report of 190,000 jobs lost, really means we have fallen behind by 315,000 jobs, just last month.
In other news, Pending Home Sales for October were reported up 6.1%, mostly attributable to First Time Home Buyers rushing to get into contract before the original November 30, 2009 expiration date for the $8,000 tax credit - again, see below for details on the tax credit extension and expansion. Also last week, the Fed issued its latest Policy Statement without any big changes or surprises.
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