Real estate companies struggle to recruit store owners for the housing market

The real estate industry added tens of thousands of new jobs in January, but the sector still had more job openings than people to fill the roles, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showed Wednesday. It was suggested that companies may be finding their role. The challenge of recruitment.

There were 178,000 job openings in the real estate, rental and leasing sector in January. According to BLS statistics, the industry has successfully hired 84,000 people and experienced attrition (a term that includes workers who leave, are fired, or involuntarily leave their jobs) for another 75,000. It was revealed.

The struggle to fill real estate jobs is part of a larger trend in the U.S. labor market. Even with a strong and resilient economy, rising interest rates and rising borrowing costs for everything, including business investment, mean there are more jobs than workers to fill them. Overall, there were nearly 9 million job openings in January, 5.7 million people were hired, and job separations totaled 5.3 million.

Economists say this is a sign that the labor market is strong.

“January's Job Openings and Turnover Summary Report is consistent with the labor market remaining very strong,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. Newsweek. “The ratio of job openings to the unemployed has increased, indicating that excess demand for labor persists.''

The housing market is struggling amid rising mortgage rates and soaring prices, putting buying a home out of reach for the majority of Americans. Mortgage interest rates are currently hovering above 7%, while the median home listing price is $409,500, higher than a year ago. New home sales increased slightly by 1.5% in January.

However, another challenge facing the housing market appears to be the lack of sufficient talent in the real estate sector, as well as in the economy as a whole.

Counselors of Real Estate, a global consortium of qualified real estate professionals, has found that labor shortages are a significant issue impacting businesses. The report found that 88% of contractors had “moderate to high difficulty finding workers, and 35% of contractors had moderate to high difficulty finding workers. [percent] I was refused a job due to lack of manpower. ”

From a worker perspective, data suggests that those looking for jobs in the real estate industry may be more likely to be hired. The unemployment rate in this sector is 3%, lower than the overall rate of 3.7%, according to BLS data.