Good news on the job front. We added 19,500 jobs in April. We are now off by 40,000 jobs from this time last year. Of that 30,000 of those jobs are government and construction. It will be interesting to see if more new homes are being built and that creates more construction jobs as the year progresses. I know, Tony Mastricola, a buyer agent on my team sold a new house to our buyers last month. It has been a long time since we last sold a new construction home to a buyer. Again, good sign!
Arizona’s job picture brightened considerably with an increase of 19,500 jobs in April, the largest number of new hires in the month of April since 2005, the Arizona Department of Commerce reported Thursday.
The state’s unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent in April from 9.6 percent in March and remained below the national rate of 9.9 percent. The overall number of non-farm jobs was still below the level a year earlier, but by only 1.6 percent. The over-the-year job losses have been shrinking steadily since August.
Many of the new hires were at leisure and hospitality businesses — which include hotels, resorts, restaurants and bars — and at retailers, temporary-service agencies and the U.S. Census Bureau, said Rick Van Sickle, a department analyst.
For the second month in a row, the leisure and hospitality sector had the highest gains. It added 5,000 jobs in April.
“There’s an indicator of some confidence,” Van Sickle said. “It looks like people are starting to spend discretionary money, at least last month.”
480-652-2004