New Jersey Real Estate Report

From CEOs for Cities:

Driven to the Brink (PDF)
How the Gas Price Spike Popped the Housing Bubble and Devalued the Suburbs

The collapse of America’s housing bubble—and its reverberations in financial markets—has obscured a tectonic shift in housing demand. Although housing prices are in decline almost everywhere, price declines are generally far more severe in far-flung suburbs and in metropolitan areas with weak close-in neighborhoods. The reason for this shift is rooted in the dramatic increase in gas prices over the past five years. Housing in cities and neighborhoods that require lengthy commutes and provide few transportation alternatives to the private vehicle are falling in value more precipitously than in more central, compact and accessible places.

From the Wall Street Journal:

As Gas Prices Spike, Suburban Home Prices Fall

Rising gasoline prices have affected much of American life –- from the cars we drive to the vacations we take. A new study, however, indicates that increasing gas prices may have the strongest impact closer to home — the houses we choose to live in.

In a report entitled “Driven to the Brink: How the Gas Price Spike Popped the Housing Bubble and Devalued the Suburbs,” released this month by CEOs for Cities, economist Joe Cortright contends that while predatory lending and subprime mortgages had a hand in today’s housing crisis, higher gas prices played a major role –- and will have a much longer-lasting impact on U.S. consumers’ home-buying preferences.

“The rise in gas prices from less than $1.10 in early 2002 to more than $3 today has dealt a major blow to consumer purchasing power and weighs most heavily on those metropolitan areas and those suburbs where people have to drive the farthest,” Mr. Cortright notes in the report.

Higher gas prices negatively impact housing prices by sapping home buyers’ budgets and leaving less to spend on housing, and by making consumers less apt to bid more for homes in less centrally located suburbs, he explains.

The study notes that while initiatives by states and the federal government to ease the housing market’s woes will have some positive effect on the real-estate market in the months ahead, higher fuel costs will permanently impact the suburban landscape as more home buyers choose to reside in closer-in locations that offer shorter commutes and mass transit.

He point out that in metropolitan areas like Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland and Tampa, home prices have fallen more in farther-flung ZIP codes than in close-in neighborhoods. For instance, in Chicago, while housing prices have remained stable in close-in neighborhoods within three miles of the city’s central business district over the past 12 months, home prices have fallen 4% in “distant” neighborhoods 13 miles from the central business district. And in Los Angeles, while home prices have dropped 6% in close-in neighborhoods, they have decreased 10% in distant neighborhoods, according to the report.

From the NY Times:

Spring in a Cold Climate

THE only way to know when the residential real estate market has “hit bottom” will be with a look in the rear-view mirror, according to Jeffrey G. Otteau, the New Jersey-based real estate analyst.

“It will appear from the shadows, months after it actually occurred,” when sales have picked up for several consecutive months, said Mr. Otteau, whose East Brunswick company, the Otteau Valuation Group, studies sales-contract data that it compiles from almost all of the state and provides monthly to subscribing brokers.
…
But the latest statewide numbers — from March — do make one thing absolutely clear: The turning point has not yet been reached.

“The clear signal,” despite a 9 percent increase in the number of sales in March over February, “is that the housing market has further to fall,” Mr. Otteau said in the newest report.

Home sales were down 27 percent from the previous March, which continued a pattern for 2008. They are running well behind 2007, which was itself a year of declining sales volume and dropping prices.

“It’s spring,” Mr. Otteau added in an interview. “The numbers always go up during the spring selling season, but you’re still talking about contract sales that are the weakest in recent history.”

The reports do not show shifts in average sales prices on a monthly basis. But given the sluggish sales pace, Mr. Otteau said prices would certainly continue to decline throughout the spring and summer.
…
Three years into this market malaise, there is no specific type of community that remains entirely immune, Mr. Otteau said. The latest statistics point toward deteriorating conditions even in downtown redevelopment areas that have attracted thousands of young professionals and empty nesters in recent years.

In Hoboken — the state’s pre-eminent example of transformation from tenement grit to condo glitz — the newest numbers hint at a downturn after a solid decade of robust growth: the supply and demand ratio has sunk to 43 percent, from 78 percent last year. There were 507 unsold homes on the market, a seven-month supply. And the average number of sales per month was down to 70, from 115 last year.

“Until pretty recently,” Mr. Otteau explained, “Hoboken was running counter to the rest of the market, mostly because of ‘overflow’ demand from New York.” He was referring to buyers who were fleeing higher apartment prices in Manhattan for relative bargains across the river.

Now, though, various factors have kicked in to abet a slowdown: tighter mortgage-lending standards; growing buyer unease over the continuing decline in home values; and the prospect of Wall Street cuts of 36,000 jobs, according to federal Labor Department projections.
…
But the graph of contract-sales activity that accompanies Mr. Otteau’s latest report tells a different story. In the three previous years, the line had climbed sharply to a peak in March; this year, the peak is more of a molehill.

He summed up his advice to brokers this way: “Expect the spring selling season to be late and brief, with only a modest increase in sales activity, and prices continuing to drift downward.”

Preliminary April sales and inventory data for Northern New Jersey (GSMLS) is in. Please note that this data is subject to revision.

The first graph plots the unadjusted sales data (closed sales) for the counties listed. Please note the lower bound of the graph, it is set to 500, not to zero. I do this to emphasize the seasonal nature of the Northern NJ market.

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The second graph is another view at the sales data for the full year. Please note that this graph does cross at zero.

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The third graph displays only April sales, 2001 to 2008 YOY.

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The fourth graph displays an overlay of Sales and Inventory from 2003 to 2007.

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The fifth graph displays the year over year change in inventory on a month by month basis.

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The sixth graph displays the year over year change in sales on a month by month basis.

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The last graph displays the absorption rate (not seasonally adjusted), in months:

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The following map is from Fannie May and displays the change in home prices from the second quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2008. Fannie Mae says that New Jersey home prices have fallen 8.1%:

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The following map is from Zillow and displays an estimate of the percentage of recent purchasers (2005-2008) who are “underwater”:

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From Newsweek:

It’s Going to Get Worse
Economist David Lereah was once the housing market’s biggest cheerleader. Now he says the bust isn’t near over, and home prices still have a long way to fall.

Let me confess at the start: I spoke with Lereah frequently during the boom, and I always found him to be a smart, thoughtful observer. Sure, his assessment of the real estate market was consistently upbeat, but that’s hardly surprising given that he served as chief spokesman for a trade organization that believes it’s always a good time to buy a home. And the truth is I feel a little sorry for the teasing he has absorbed since the housing bubble burst. Yes, he did publish a book in 2006 with the unfortunate title “Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust”—but he didn’t pick the title, the same way columnists like me aren’t always thrilled by the headlines our editors put atop our stories. And while I thought it was funny when my colleague Daniel Gross and others compared Lereah to Baghdad Bob, the Iraqi information minister who repeatedly announced his army’s military successes even as U.S. tanks were overtaking the capital, I can’t help feeling bad for him. But if you judge from the blogosphere, I’m in the minority with my sympathy.

It’s been more than a year since Lereah left NAR, so I called this week to check in. It turns out he has recently set up a new firm called Reecon Advisors, which is advising Wall Street firms and institutional investors about the real estate market. “Wall Street has an intense interest in [this], because they’re looking for when is the recovery going to come, and at what point does the cycle turn,” Lereah told me.

His answer: not yet. “We’re not at the bottom,” he says. “[People] want it to be near the bottom, but we’re not there yet. The leading indicators are still very bad. Pending home sales are still in bad shape. Mortgage applications are low … There’s still supply out there in abundance … This thing is going to get worse before it gets better.”

Lereah says that the industry may begin to see a slight uptick in sales later this summer, which could signal the start of the recovery. Home prices, however, will continue to fall. According to the latest numbers from the Case-Shiller index, the average U.S. home has lost around 15 percent of its value since the market’s peak. “We’re probably going to end up with a 20 percent [decline], but if I’m wrong it will be even more than that,” he says.

(emphasis added)

From the AP:

Pre-emptive strike launched against more NJ rebate cuts

A pre-emptive strike is being launched against the possibility of additional cuts to New Jersey’s property tax rebates.

AARP New Jersey plans to rally at the Statehouse on Monday. It’s decrying talk of more cuts to the state-funded rebates, which help homeowners combat the state’s high property taxes, which average $6,800 per homeowner and are twice the national average.

“There are fundamental flaws in the state’s property tax system, and until those are resolved we cannot falsely balance the budget on the backs of the people struggling to pay their property taxes,” said Marilyn Askin of AARP New Jersey.

Democratic Gov. Jon S. Corzine has proposed eliminating rebates for households earning more than $150,000 to help slash spending amid budget troubles.

Under his proposal, households earning up to $100,000 would still get rebates averaging $1,115, while those making between $100,000 and $150,000 would get $665 after getting $960 last year. Renter rebates would drop from as much as $350 to $80, while senior and disabled citizens would still receive $1,266.

From the Star Ledger:

A ticket to a lower gas bill

As gas prices continue to set records at the pump, more and more commuters are ditching longtime commuting habits and boarding trains and buses to get to work.

While NJ Transit officials say it’s difficult to measure the precise effect of escalating gas prices on ridership, they acknowledged that in recent months they have seen the number of passengers move in sync with rising gas prices. And with forecasts showing little chance for a let-up this summer, that trend could continue — meaning a major shift in habits for a state that has a long love affair with the automobile.

For the first three months of this year, preliminary numbers show a 5.3 percent increase in rail ridership over the same period last year, according to NJ Transit.

That comes after the number of passengers increased by 2.2 percent during the last three months of 2007. In October, the number of rail passengers hit a record 23 million, according to NJ Transit. On average, gas prices that month were around $2.60 a gallon. Gas in New Jersey now averages $3.649 a gallon.

Buses are also more crowded, with a 1.8 percent increase in ridership during the first quarter of 2008, according to NJ Transit.

“It’s difficult to attribute the increase to one single factor, but what we’ve heard is that gas prices are a factor, especially among first-time transit takers,” said Dan Stessel, a spokesman for NJ Transit.
…
The popularity of public transportation has actually been on the rise since 2005 when Hurricane Katrina wiped out refineries along the Gulf Coast, sending fuel prices soaring, said Virginia Miller, a spokeswoman for the American Public Transportation Association.

“Right away we were hearing from transit systems,” Miller said. “Not only was ridership going up, but people were going to websites to get information about public transportation.”

The association counted 10.3 billion trips, the highest in 50 years, on buses, light rails and trains last year.

From the NJ Judiciary:

Testimony by Judge Philip S. Carchman
Acting Administrative Director of the Courts
Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee
Fiscal Year 2009
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Economic indicators tell us that by the end of this court year, case filings will reach historic highs. For example, foreclosure filings in New Jersey for the first quarter of 2008 exceeded 4,000 per month, a staggering 44 percent increase over the same period last year. This year we are on track to receive an anticipated 49,000 foreclosure filings. This is double the number we received in 2006, just two years ago. And our best estimate is that we may double this number yet again next year.

Increased foreclosure filings are a harbinger of increases elsewhere. Our special civil part filings are about to hit record highs. Families in financial trouble, when forced to decide between paying a credit card bill or the mortgage, pay the mortgage. Left unpaid, their credit card debts will reach our special civil part courts, where filings are for amounts under $15,000. We are analyzing the numbers on a monthly basis and have grave concerns. We project receiving more than 621,000 Special Civil Part cases this year, 100,000 more than last year.

We know from experience that we must be watchful of similar growth in other case types as well. Another by-product of hard economic times is displacement in people’s lives. Financial struggles tear families apart, possibly resulting in divorce, domestic violence, abuse or neglect of children or missed support payments. We may see the effects of increased financial strain in the criminal courts as well. Our court system’s challenge is great: to adequately manage and resolve cases that we project will increase overall by almost 9 percent by the end of June while at the same time reducing staff by 300 to meet our budget reduction of $27 million.

From Bloomberg:

Economy in U.S. Probably Expanded at Slowest Pace in Five Years

The U.S. economy probably grew in the first quarter at the slowest pace in five years as consumer and business spending faltered and the housing slump deepened, economists said before a government report today.

A 0.5 percent annual pace of growth from January through March, the smallest gain since the last three months of 2002, is the median estimate of 80 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

“I’d probably call it a recession,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc. in New York. “It’s a pretty bad environment that is unlikely to get better any time soon. The consumer is on very shaky footing.”

Spending by households, the biggest part of the economy, probably grew last quarter at the slowest pace in 13 years as job losses mounted, food and fuel prices surged and property values tumbled. Federal Reserve policy makers are forecast to cut the benchmark interest rate today to limit the downturn.

The Commerce Department’s report on gross domestic product, the volume of all goods and services produced, is due at 8:30 a.m. in Washington. The economy grew at a 0.6 percent pace in the last three months of 2007.

From the AP:

Fed expected to cut key interest rates one more time

The Federal Reserve, which began the year aggressively fighting a severe credit crunch and economic weakness, may push the pause button after delivering perhaps one more quarter-point cut in interest rates.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues were to wrap up a two-day meeting Wednesday and financial markets widely expected that the discussions will end with an announcement that the Fed will cut a key interest rate by a quarter-point.

That would be the seventh reduction in the federal funds rate since the central bank began battling against the credit squeeze and the growing possibility of a recession last September.

The Fed delivered two three-quarter-point moves and one half-point cut over an eight-week period from mid-January to mid-March that represented the central bank’s most aggressive rate cuts in a quarter-century.

However, the central bank is expected to respond with a less aggressive quarter-point move at this meeting, in part because the financial turmoil seems to have eased and because there are growing concerns about inflation.

While there is some thought that the Fed might decide to forgo a rate cut, most analysts believe that the greater likelihood is a quarter-point move.

According to S&P Case Shiller, NY Metro Area home prices are down 6.6% in the past year, and down 8.05% from the peak set in June of 2006:

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From Standard and Poor’s:

Steep Declines in Home Prices Continued in February 2008 According to the S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indices (PDF)

“There is no sign of a bottom in the numbers,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Prices of single family homes continue to drop across the nation. All 20 metro areas were in the red for the February-over-January reading. In addition, 19 of the 20 MSAs are still reporting negative annual returns. The monthly data show that every one of the MSAs has now declined every month since September 2007, marking six consecutive months. On top of that, remained steep the declines have with eight of the 20 MSAs and both composites reporting their single largest monthly decline in February.”

From MarketWatch:

Home prices fall record 12.7% in past year, Case-Shiller say

The decline in U.S. home prices quickened in February, with prices down a record 12.7% in the past year for 20 key cities, according to the Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday by Standard & Poor’s. “There is no sign of a bottom in the numbers,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s. Prices in 19 of the 20 cities have fallen over the past year, with prices in all 20 cities falling month-to-month for six straight months. The biggest declines were in Las Vegas and Miami, with declines of more than 20% in the past year. Prices in Charlotte, N.C., are up 1.5%.

From Bloomberg:

S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. Home-Price Index Fell 12.7%

Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in February by the most on record, pointing to an imbalance between supply and demand that shows no sign of ending.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 12.7 percent from a year earlier, more than forecast and the most since the figures were first published in 2001. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007.

Prices will probably keep sliding as foreclosures push even more properties onto the market just as stricter lending rules limit the number of qualified buyers. Shrinking home values have contributed to a slowdown in consumer spending that may already have tipped the economy into a recession.

“We’re going to continue in this abyss for a while,” said Ellen Zentner, an economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. “Inventories are getting worked off but it’s a slow process. Sales and prices will go down.”

Prices dropped 2.6 percent in February from a month earlier, after a 2.4 percent decline in January, the report showed. The figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal effects, so economists prefer to focus on year-over-year changes instead of month-to-month.

The index was forecast to drop 12 percent following a 10.7 percent drop in January, according to the median estimate of 14 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates ranged from declines of 12.6 percent to 11 percent.

The group’s 10-city composite index, with a history back to 1987, fell 13.6 percent in the 12 months ended in February, also the most ever.

From Reuters via CNBC:

Home Prices Tumble Again; ‘No Sign of a Bottom’

Prices of existing US single-family homes extended their slump in February, with 17 of the 20 measured regions posting record annual declines, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller home price index Tuesday.

The composite month-over-month index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 2.6 percent to 175.94 in February from January, for an annual drop of 12.7 percent.

S&P said its composite month-over-month index of 10 metro areas slid 2.8 percent in February to 190.58, for an record annual decline of 13.6 percent.

Eight of the top 20 metro areas, as well as both composite measures had their biggest monthly declines in February, S&P said in the release.

From the Courier Post:

Expert: Housing downturn has another year

An economist and a consultant painted a less than rosy picture of the fiscal health of New Jersey and the people who call it home during an annual look at the recent economic outlook at the Atlantic Builders Convention.

The genesis of the crisis followed the 2001 recession and the aftershock of 9/11, when the federal interest rate reached 1 percent, the lowest ever, spurring a boom in the housing market.

“That fueled a boom with its irresponsible lending and borrowing on a national scale. The market promised to keep going and going and going like the battery bunny,” said Joseph Seneca of the E.J. Bloustein School of Public Policy at Rutgers University.

It didn’t.

The increase in income came nowhere close to the increase in home sales, putting things out of joint, Seneca said. “In the long run, they need to be equal.”

At the same time, employment growth in New Jersey was tepid, gaining an average of 23,300 new private sector jobs between 2004 and 2007, a third of the annual gains between 1992 and 2000.

By the end of 2005, first-time buyers stopped buying. “The market came to a screeching halt,” said Jeffrey G. Otteau, of the Otteau Valuation Group Inc.

If newcomers don’t buy a starter home, the seller has no money to buy a larger home and up the food chain it goes, Otteau said. Inventory rose, prices fell.

“What began as a housing slowdown in 2006 turned into crisis by the end of 2007,” Seneca said.

The result was a rise in foreclosures and mortgage payment deficiencies, as well as credit paralysis, where worthy borrowers cannot obtain credit even with falling home prices. Camden had the highest rate of foreclosure in the state between 2005 and 2007.

The last time the housing industry fell this much — in 1988 — it took 10 years to recover. The housing market is not close to the bottom of the cycle, Otteau said.

“The pace of home sales in 2008 is the weakest in the last four years. And a correction still has a year to run at least,” he said.

In New Jersey, there are 70,000 houses for sale now. Four years ago at the same point, it was 30,000. Otteau shattered the myth that the upper end of the market is immune. “The deepest decline in pace and sales strength were the brightest parts a year ago,” he said.

Three years ago, during the peak of the housing bubble, I went out on a limb and offered up my forecast on where New Jersey home prices would go. That number was down 30%, and it caused quite a stir. The analysis was simple one, based on historical home prices, incomes, and rents. Home prices had risen dramatically when compared to household income. This left us with three possible outcomes, incomes would rise to bring the ratio back near historic levels, home prices would fall to restore those levels, or we had undergone a paradigm shift and the old ratio was no longer valid. When I looked at historic price to rent ratios, the pattern was the same, homes were commanding prices far and beyond what their rent rolls would infer. The same three outcomes existed here as well, rents would increase to make up the gap, home prices could fall, or else “it really was different this time.”

There was no magic, no crystal ball, no black box, and no esoteric finance. The concept was simple, how could home prices rise faster than the incomes needed to support those prices? Surely we’d hit a point where no one would afford to buy a home. The same applies to rental prices, at what point would it no longer make financial sense to hold on to an investment property? Or the opposite, rents so low that no one would consider investing in real estate. Landlords were subsidizing renters and were not being compensated for their risk.

I digress, neither the forecast nor the analysis was the point of this, it was the reaction. Hell hath no fury like a homeowner scorned. I was called crazy for even suggesting the possibility that home prices might fall 30%, it simply wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be possible. I was a bitter renter, or worse, a housing terrorist for suggesting such things. What did I know? I was just some idiot bubble blogger trying to crash the market.

My my, how times have changed.

From the WSJ:

Yale’s Shiller: U.S. Housing Slump May Exceed Great Depression

Yale University economist Robert Shiller, pioneer of Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index, said there’s a good chance housing prices will fall further than the 30% drop in the historic depression of the 1930s. Home prices nationwide already have dropped 15% since their peak in 2006, he said.

“I think there is a scenario that they could be down substantially more,” Mr. Shiller said during a speech at the New Haven Lawn Club.

Mr. Shiller, who admitted he has a reputation for being bearish, said real estate cycles typically take years to correct. Home prices rose about 85% from 1997 to 2006 adjusted for inflation, the biggest national housing boom in U.S. history, Mr. Shiller said. “Basically we’re in uncharted territory,” he said. “It seems we have developed a speculative culture about housing that never existed on a national basis before.” Many people became convinced that housing prices would increase 10% annually, a notion Mr. Shiller called crazy.

From Bloomberg:

U.S. Existing Home Sales Fell in March; Prices Lower

Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. fell in March as loan restrictions and the prospect of further price declines kept buyers away.

Purchases dropped 2 percent, less than forecast, to an annual rate of 4.93 million, from 5.03 million in February, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median sales price fell 7.7 percent from a year earlier.

Defaults on subprime mortgage loans have led banks to tighten borrowing rules, while home values are decreasing as foreclosures add to the glut of unsold properties. The housing slump, now in its third year, is one reason some Federal Reserve policy makers are concerned the U.S. is heading into a recession.

“The declines will persist through 2008,” Avery Shenfeld, senior economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. in Toronto, said before the report. “To see a consistent upturn in sales and prices, we’re going to need to work through the slump in housing and the crisis in the credit market. That will take time.”

Resales were forecast to fall 2.3 percent to a 4.92 million annual rate, according to the median projection of 72 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 4.8 million to 5.08 million.

Sales fell 19.3 percent in March compared with a year earlier. Resales averaged 5.67 million in 2007.
…
The number of homes for sale at the end of March increased by 40,000 to 4.06 million. At the current sales pace, that represented 9.9 months’ worth, up from 9.6 months’ worth at the end of the prior month.

The median price of an existing home dropped to $200,700 from $217,400 a year earlier.

From the Asbury Park Press:

N.J. job growth low, report says

New Jersey’s private-sector job growth ranked 41st nationwide each of the past two years in a sign that its high costs drove employers away, Rutgers University economists said in a report released Monday.

And the state faces bleak prospects: New Jersey has a high concentration of jobs in the financial services sector, which is getting hit hard in the economic downturn, they said.

“I’ve seen a lot of cyclical times with real estate, but I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Arnie Lubliner, general manager of Winstar Mortgage Co. in Manasquan, where business in 2007 was off 63 percent from the previous year.

The report by Rutgers economists James W. Hughes and Joseph J. Seneca comes as bad news to business owners and workers, who had hoped the worst of the economic downturn was behind them.

It argues New Jersey’s economy has several obstacles. The state’s job growth is slower even than its high-cost neighbors, and it sits at the epicenter of the financial services industry.

“This is a very significant economic storm that we have entered into,” Hughes said.

The report found New Jersey’s private sector grew by 0.8 percent in 2006 and 0.1 percent in 2007. By comparison, New York’s private sector grew by 1.5 percent in 2006 and 1.2 percent in 2007, and Pennsylvania’s private sector grew by 1.2 percent in 2006 and 0.6 percent in 2007.

That puts New Jersey in the company of states that have been considered economic trouble spots: California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona have also felt the most pain from the housing bubble’s collapse.
…
“New Jersey has become a place where it is very, very expensive to operate — even within the region,” said Philip Kirschner, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, the state’s biggest business lobby. A quick recovery isn’t likely, the economists said. New Jersey and the rest of the nation are caught in a downturn stemming from a slow housing market. That has forced lenders to tighten their credit standards.

New Jersey is likely to suffer more than others. Financial activities — banking, brokerages, real estate and finance — account for 6.9 percent of the state’s employment, compared with 6.1 percent of U.S. employment, Hughes said.

From the Star Ledger:

Jobless rate holds steady as officials note bad trend

Employment in New Jersey was essentially unchanged in March — even though the nation as a whole lost 80,000 jobs last month, state officials reported yesterday.

New Jersey’s nearly 4 million work force gained 1,000 jobs in March, bringing to 9,700 the number of jobs lost in the first three months of the year — when the nation’s payrolls fell by 232,000.
…
Economist Joseph Seneca of the Bloustein School at Rutgers said, “The state is fully participating in the weak labor market caused by the national recession, and going forward we remain exposed in finance, and in business and professional services connected to the financial sector.”

New Jersey gained 1,000 jobs in March, 700 in government and 300 in the private sector. Seneca focuses on private sector employment, which he said declined by 10,500 jobs in the first quarter in New Jersey, while the nation lost 286,000 private sector jobs in the quarter.

Seneca said the rest of the year is likely to be weak. “When the finance sector was booming, it was very beneficial to the region, and now we are likely to experience the obverse of this.”
…
Rae Rosen, senior economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said while New Jersey is tracking the nation, there are some regional differences. While business and professional services have weakened substantially in New York City, that sector is holding up better in New Jersey so far, Rosen said. The same goes for the education and health sectors, she said. “This is what we are seeing in the data, but we don’t know why.”

From the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development:

Employment Level Relatively Unchanged in March Unemployment Rate Held Steady Over the Month

New Jersey’s employment was virtually unchanged in March as employers added 1,000 workers to their payrolls. New Jersey’s unemployment rate held steady at 4.8 percent. The United States rate increased to 5.1 percent in March from 4.8 percent in February.

Over the first quarter of 2008, employment in New Jersey has contracted by 9,700 jobs. Nationally, employment declined by 232,000 over the same period.

“We continue to see evidence of a national economic slowdown,” said Labor Commissioner David J. Socolow. “New Jersey is following the national trend.”

Total nonfarm wage and salary employment in the Garden State edged higher by 1,000 in March, to reach a seasonally adjusted level of 4,072,900, based on preliminary estimates from the Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s monthly survey of employers. The previously released February estimates were revised lower by 400 to 4,071,900 after more complete reporting.

The monthly private sector employment change was a mixed bag of small gains and losses, resulting in four industry supersectors adding employment, four contracting and two remaining unchanged. The largest job gains were recorded in leisure and hospitality (+1,300) and trade, transportation and utilities (+1,000). The advance in leisure and hospitality was due mainly to hiring in the accommodations and food services component while the gain in trade, transportation and utilities was entirely due to increased employment in the retail trade segment. Retail employment in March may have been boosted by this year’s early arrival of the Easter shopping season. Significant job losses over the month occurred in construction (-700), and professional and business services (-600). Employment in these two industries is still being impacted by the troubled housing market and associated problems in the mortgage and credit industries.

Public sector jobholding expanded by 700 over the month led by an increase in local government (+900), which includes municipal and county level employees.