Some reports on construction employment in California. "Construction hiring in San Diego bucked a statewide trend that saw a loss of 8,300 construction jobs in April from one month earlier. That comes on the heels of a loss of 9,400 construction jobs in March."

"'I suspect we're going to lose a couple hundred thousand construction jobs over the next two years,' said Christopher Thornberg, an economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast. 'The housing market is clearly braking right now. I think 200,000 might be conservative.'"

"Statewide unemployment rose a tenth of a point to 4.9 percent in April, while total payrolls fell by 2,600, the Employment Development Department said Friday. The month before, California lost 10,800 jobs, ending a streak of nine straight monthly job gains."

"The Sacramento area defied the state trends. Unemployment fell a tenth of a point in April to 4.6 percent, as the region added 3,000 jobs despite a fairly weak showing from the construction industry."

"Howard Roth, the state's chief economist, acknowledged that the housing market is slowing, and it's likely that California will see a dropoff in the construction industry regardless of the weather. Roth and others said they believe other industries will compensate for the slowdown in construction."

"State officials blamed at least some of the two-month decline on rain. But that explanation did not quell concerns that the end of the housing boom was slowing California's economy and could eventually spell trouble for the state government's ambitious spending plans."

"Economists said it was too early to tell whether California was an outlier or on the leading edge of a broader housinginduced economic slowdown. The state led the nation's housing boom five years ago, so it wouldn't be surprising if it led a housing downturn as well.

"Friday's jobless report left little doubt that the exuberance in housing is ending. On the heels of a 20% drop in home-building permits in the first quarter, the state's construction sector shed jobs in April, leading five sectors that reported losses."

"Most economists had anticipated that job growth would begin slowing as rising interest rates and high prices cooled the housing market. But the declines came as a surprise. 'Most of us thought that the minus 13,400 [in March] was a blip,' said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto."

"'What we're looking at now is two months of small job losses,' he said. 'It's unexpected. If any part of it is real, it's a very serious signal. I think we're into a slowing economy because people are getting more cautious in spending,' he said. 'They are facing higher interest rates. They are facing higher energy prices…. We're moving into some head winds.'"

"In Southern California, the locales that saw the greatest job growth in the home construction boom are keenly feeling its falloff, said Lisa Grobar, an economist at Cal State Long Beach. In Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, construction employment grew less than 3% in April on a year-over-year basis, down from more than 9% a year earlier, she said. Orange County's building job growth dropped to 3.5% in April from 7.3% a year earlier."