CHICAGO | Economic & Business Development

[marothisu]

April city/metro employment report is out. Apparently the Chicago MSA had the largest decrease in unemployment rate of any MSA between March and April by decreasing 1%. I can't see all the raw data yet though to see how the city did.

Msa unemployment rate is now at 3.6% NYC area is 4%, Houston area at 4.2%, Dallas area at 3.4%, Miami area are 3.7%, Los Angeles area at 3.7%. The number of unemployed persons decreased 38,085 people, but the labor force went down 51,426 people. This means the total number of employed persons decreased by 13,341.

At the same time, the total number of nonfarm employees increased by 34,700.


Will post city in a bit

[marothisu]

Oh, one more thing about the CSI. I mentioned it but didn't emphasize it. As far as I know, only SFH are counted in the index. I believe that anything multifamily is not. So you know...we can hopefully see some criticism. That condo sold in Uptown at a 10% price increase? Not counted at all. This is only for single family homes.

Here's an article about it relating to NYC with this criticism:
https://therealdeal.com/issues_artic...-case-shiller/

[rgolch]

Originally Posted by marothisu

At the same time, too high of an increase is not a good thing nor sustainable. I know we aren't shooting for last place, but first place as far as an actual functioning city goes shouldn't necessarily be the thing to strive for imo unless the #1 spot won't lead to issues.

That's kinda what I thought. It's great if you own a home you're trying to sell. But if you're in the market to buy, it's terrible. What's more, you gotta think there's going to be a breaking point for some US markets. Not everyone in the Bay Area is a dot com billionaire. Teachers, bus drivers, cops, and people working in the service industry also need places to live. And not everyone can be expected to have a 90 minute commute just to get to work. I mean... am I missing something?

[marothisu]

City unemployment for April at 3.9%. Unfortunately labor force and employment went down, but employment is still over 35k more than April 2014, and over 70K more than April 2010.

Originally Posted by rgolch

That's kinda what I thought. It's great if you own a home you're trying to sell. But if you're in the market to buy, it's terrible. What's more, you gotta think there's going to be a breaking point for some US markets. Not everyone in the Bay Area is a dot com billionaire. Teachers, bus drivers, cops, and people working in the service industry also need places to live. And not everyone can be expected to have a 90 minute commute just to get to work. I mean... am I missing something?

Yeah, housing price increases are good, but I think there's a limit to how much in making your city not a steaming pile of shot that nobody can afford. Also, csi only counts single family homes, and ones that didn't undergo major renovations. It's an index of how much your single family home price can increase over time without really investing much money in it. At the same time, in actual cities themselves like a NYC, SF, Chicago, etc it's not a good indicator since there's so many condos and those aren't actually what the index measures

[tjp]

That's unfortunate about total employment decreasing .. did any other MSA experience that?

[the urban politician]

^ Unemployment, not employment.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Unemployment, not employment.

Unemployment, employment, and labor force all decreased. However, month to month anywhere that's not necessarily uncommon. The difference is when it's every month over like a year.

[the urban politician]

^ Ahh, okay, must've missed that.

[moorhosj]

Made some changes based on feedback. Still not how I would like it to look and not quite at the negative=red, positive=green level, but it gets close. I wish I was better at R to give something a little more complete.



All that said, what I think is interesting from this view is the income growth in the southwest area of the city from The Loop to Midway (along I-55).

[the urban politician]

I sure do reckon that Greg Hinz has been lookin at your data, Marothisu, if you look at today's Crains....

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I sure do reckon that Greg Hinz has been lookin at your data, Marothisu, if you look at today's Crains....

I emailed my contact a few days ago with the data

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Unemployment, employment, and labor force all decreased. However, month to month anywhere that's not necessarily uncommon. The difference is when it's every month over like a year.

This BLS data has a lot of noise. It is claiming that Chicag-Naperville-Elgin metro area unemployment fell from 4.3% in March to 3.6% in April, which doesn't seem possible or plausible. It also has the state unemployment rate falling from 4.4% to 3.6% month-to-month. Likely, we will see some adjustments in next month's numbers to get a better picture.

BLS data

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

This BLS data has a lot of noise. It is claiming that Chicag-Naperville-Elgin metro area unemployment fell from 4.3% in March to 3.6% in April, which doesn't seem possible or plausible. It also has the state unemployment rate falling from 4.4% to 3.6% month-to-month. Likely, we will see some adjustments in next month's numbers to get a better picture.

BLS data

How's it not plausible? This is a simple calculation. There's 173,832 unemployed persons with 4,841,889 people in the labor force for April at the MSA level. 173832/4841889 = 0.0359. Not sure why you think simple division is all of a sudden broken.

[moorhosj]

Originally Posted by marothisu

How's it not plausible? This is a simple calculation. There's 173,832 unemployed persons with 4,841,889 people in the labor force for April at the MSA level. 173832/4841889 = 0.0359. Not sure why you think simple division is all of a sudden broken.

The snark is noted. In March there were 211,917 unemployed persons and 4,893,315 people in the labor force. It raises alarm bells that the Chicago region lost 18% of it's unemployed persons in one month. The labor force losing 51k people and unemployment dropping by 38k in one month makes me think there is a kink in the April numbers that will smooth out over time or be revised.

You aren't the only one who follows government data closely. Anyone who works with this data knows that month-to-month changes are subject to volatility and should not be taken as gospel. The BLS themselves refer to this data as preliminary.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

The snark is noted. In March there were 211,917 unemployed persons and 4,893,315 people in the labor force. It raises alarm bells that the Chicago region lost 18% of it's unemployed persons in one month. The labor force losing 51k people and unemployment dropping by 38k in one month makes me think there is a kink in the April numbers that will smooth out over time or be revised.

You aren't the only one who follows government data closely. Anyone who works with this data knows that month-to-month changes are subject to volatility and should not be taken as gospel. The BLS themselves refer to this data as preliminary.

Yep - exactly (bolded). Totally agree with this. Which is why I didn't shout "great news everyone, the unemployment rate is pretty low now!" I don't think it's suspect that it decreased that much for an entire region. I'll bet a large percentage of the net loss was ultimately due to the decrease in labor force. If you aren't in the labor force, you aren't counted as employed or unemployed. I think you'd have more of a point if the decrease of unemployment was way higher than the decrease (or say an increase) of total labor force. Then again for such a large metro area it's not necessarily unbelievable with people removing themselves from the labor force for whatever reason (moving, retiring, or otherwise).

[glowrock]

Originally Posted by moorhosj

The snark is noted. In March there were 211,917 unemployed persons and 4,893,315 people in the labor force. It raises alarm bells that the Chicago region lost 18% of it's unemployed persons in one month. The labor force losing 51k people and unemployment dropping by 38k in one month makes me think there is a kink in the April numbers that will smooth out over time or be revised.

You aren't the only one who follows government data closely. Anyone who works with this data knows that month-to-month changes are subject to volatility and should not be taken as gospel. The BLS themselves refer to this data as preliminary.

I definitely see moorhosj's point here. I think the monthly labor numbers are historically quite variable and are typically subject to quite a bit of variability. I wouldn't take a month-by-month change as a big deal, but rather a six month trend, for instance, as a better indication of the truth.

For the record, marothisu, your data mining and analysis of all sorts of datasets over the last few months has been simply outstanding. Good show, in fact great show!

Aaron (Glowrock)

[rgolch]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I sure do reckon that Greg Hinz has been lookin at your data, Marothisu, if you look at today's Crains....

And did you notice? He still found a way to suggest a negative bend. By casting doubt that as this group ages and becomes more successful, they’ll stick around in Chicago. Based on absolutely nothing.

There’s seriously something wrong with Gregg Hinz. I presume he’s just a conservative curmudgeon who hates Illinios Democratic bend. And maybe he thinks by constantly insulting the city and pointing out it’s problems, we’ll all wake up and see the world his way. But sometimes you gotta wonder if the corporate national Crain’s instructs them to write certain articles. Is Crain’s owned by Sinclair media, or some other ultra conservative company? One that may hate Chicago for being a sanctuary city, and a liberal stronghold?

[marothisu]

Crain's is owned by Crain Communication out of Detroit. The same company also publishes magazines like Advertising Age, Autoweek, etc.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by rgolch

And did you notice? He still found a way to suggest a negative bend. By casting doubt that as this group ages and becomes more successful, they’ll stick around in Chicago. Based on absolutely nothing.

There’s seriously something wrong with Gregg Hinz. I presume he’s just a conservative curmudgeon who hates Illinios Democratic bend. And maybe he thinks by constantly insulting the city and pointing out it’s problems, we’ll all wake up and see the world his way. But sometimes you gotta wonder if the corporate national Crain’s instructs them to write certain articles. Is Crain’s owned by Sinclair media, or some other ultra conservative company? One that may hate Chicago for being a sanctuary city, and a liberal stronghold?

I saw the negative spin and rolled my eyes too, but not because he is a “conservative curmudgeon”. To the contrary, I think he is probably a tad liberal.

I think these journalists have to write pieces that have a bit of tension in them just to draw interest. Journalism is a business. That’s why it’s not entirely to be trusted.

Chicago’s strong showing in the $200k (higher rate as a percentage than NY and LA but lower than some smaller big cities) or above category already shows that Greg is wrong in suggesting that people will bail on Chicago in droves once their income is higher

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

I saw the negative spin and rolled my eyes too, but not because he is a “conservative curmudgeon”. To the contrary, I think he is probably a tad liberal.

I think these journalists have to write pieces that have a bit of tension in them just to draw interest. Journalism is a business. That’s why it’s not entirely to be trusted.

Chicago’s strong showing in the $200k (higher rate as a percentage than NY and LA but lower than some smaller big cities) or above category already shows that Greg is wrong in suggesting that people will bail on Chicago in droves once their income is higher

Perhaps also evidenced by stuff like this:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...300639431.html

Yes, we'll have to see - it's anybody's guess but the 2010-2016 numbers are at least positive for this type of income.