Seattle’s unemployment up but job creation a more important metric

September 19, 2013

Mike Scott from Dupre and Scott spoke at a luncheon I attended this week. As always, he shared some very interesting statistics on the Seattle market and the direction of multi-family development, vacancies, etc. He talked at length about the difference he sees between the unemployment rate and the rate at which we’re creating new jobs. By his estimation, the creation of 8 new jobs creates demand for one new apartment. Thus a small uptick in unemployment (usually measured by the number of people seeking unemployment benefits) isn’t as important as job creation. And generally, the greater Seattle area’s 32,000 new apartment units scheduled to be developed in the next few years will be adequately absorbed by the continued high pace of job creation.

With that background, I cautiously read the Seattle Times article below. Seattle’s unemployment rate kicked up last month but still is far below the national average.

Seattle Times