Southern California added more than 10,000 real estate jobs last month, most of them in construction.
Real estate employment in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties hit a post-Great Recession high of 805,200 in October, with a monthly increase of 10,000, the Orange County Register reported. The number of people increased by 200.
Real estate jobs increased 2.1% with 16,300 local jobs added over the 12-month period.
The recovery marks a turnaround from last spring, when real estate jobs fell by 4,600 jobs in March due to sluggish home sales across Southern California, and jobs recovered in May.
Growth occurred despite rising interest rates. Rising financing costs have depressed home sales and put some development projects out of reach.
According to the newspaper, local construction work is increasing due to huge infrastructure projects.
Other real estate jobs are relatively stable, as many real estate workers are self-employed and not included in state employment statistics.
Across Southern California, employment in all other industries reached its highest level since the crash, with 7.3 million people employed, an increase of 88,200 jobs in the month. Over the 12-month period, non-real estate job openings increased by 118,100, an increase of 1.6%.
The real estate job market accounted for 9.9% of total employment last month. Employment in the industry represented 10% of all new local jobs in the month and 12.1% of Southern California jobs in the same year.
Since 2010, real estate jobs represent 9.7 percent of all jobs in the Southland region and 12.7 percent of local employment.
Employment in the architecture, civil engineering and construction industries increased by 2.1% year-on-year to 125,500 in October. Specialty jobs hired by contractors increased 3.2% year-over-year to 267,000.
Jobs in architectural services for commercial facility operations rose 4.9% to 115,900.
At the same time, employment in real estate lending rose 1% to 103,100, while employment in real estate services fell 0.2% to 141,500.
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— Dana Bartholomew