Portland Mortgage Market Update — April 5, 2024

It was "Jobs week" this week, culminating in today's BLS jobs report which came in higher than expected at 303K vs the 200K estimate. (These are the seasonally adjusted numbers, without the seasonal adjustment it would have been an increase of 659K workers) Similar to the past few BLS reports that have come out- most of the growth is showing in part-time workers. According to the household survey, there was an increase of 488K workers in age range of 16-19 and 55+. There was actually a decrease of workers in the 25-54 age range, which is generally considered the "full time" employee range.

There was more data showing weakness in the labor market in the household survey, in the "duration of unemployment" category. This bucket measures how long unemployed have been out of work on a month over month basis. For instance, from February to March it shows that for people who have been unemployed for less than 5 weeks there was a drop of 137K people, which sounds great! However for people who have been unemployed longer than that there was an increase of 97,000 people month over month, with 43,000 of that figure being unemployed and looking for work for over the past 6 months. That shows that if you can't scramble to find work immediately after losing your job (or immediately picking up a part-time gig in many instances) it is getting harder and harder to find work.

Unfortunately, the market ran with the headline news and rates are suffering as a result. On top of the stronger than anticipated Jobs numbers, multiple fed members have come out this week indicating rate cuts may be coming later rather than sooner. Dallas Fed Chair Lori Logan said she believes "it's much too soon to think about cutting rates" in a speech to Duke University today. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who had previously indicated at least 3 rate cuts this year, said "if we continue to see inflation moving sideways, then that would make me questions whether we need to do to this rate cuts at all". As a result, rates are now hovering around the low 7's.

That's it for this week! I am around all weekend if there is anything else I can do to help.