DDM - Why The 2018 Housing Weakness Isn't Sufficient By Itself To Justify A Recession Call
Introduction
While we are waiting for Friday’s employment report, and with the continuing drought in significant economic numbers due to the government shutdown, I thought I’d look at a few things to watch.
A look at housing construction vs. construction employment
By now it is received wisdom that we had a turn-down in housing last year. But is that enough to trigger a recession warning? Not really.
Below is a graph of the YoY% change in building permits (red) and construction employment as a share of the workforce (blue) (this is to avoid mainly measuring