by Calculated Risk on 4/27/2006 03:13:00 PM

Here is another story on housing and employment, this one from the Contra Costa Times: 'Housing is king in East Bay employment market'

Housing has become a crucial pillar of an increasingly robust and strongly expanding East Bay economy.

Whether that's good or bad is another thing altogether.

What is clear is that the residential boom in the Alameda-Contra Costa region has fueled remarkable job gains on a number of fronts ...

Construction, finance, insurance and real estate have become the most dynamic industries in the East Bay.

"We are in a construction-driven economy, top to bottom," said Christopher Thornberg, an economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast. "Things are being driven in large part by real estate, and housing is going to leave the economy in a big way over the next year.

"What's unclear is how much oomph will leave the East Bay economy," Thornberg said.
...
Housing generates jobs

Three industries that are directly or indirectly linked to the housing market have accounted for a significant number of jobs in the East Bay over the past year. No one can say definitively how many jobs resulted specifically because of housing, but the numbers are striking nonetheless.

Construction, real estate and finance/insurance combined to generate about 12,000 new East Bay jobs over the last 12 months -- that's 52 percent of the 23,000 new jobs in the two-county region over the same time period.

"Jobs are jobs, and that's good, and that produces income," Thornberg said. "But you hope that some of the other industries will replace any losses when housing slows down. Professional services, transportation, maybe even a little manufacturing, will start to pick up the slack."
...
In the past year, construction was the champ of employment generation with 8,200 added jobs. But other East Bay industries unrelated to housing also created plenty of jobs:

• Leisure and hospitality, 3,400 jobs

• Retail, 2,900 jobs

• Professional and business services, 2,900 jobs

• Finance and insurance, 2,600 jobs

• Health care, 2,200 jobs.