Housing Woes Hit Job Seekers Where it Hurts

The combination of a buyer's market in both talent and real estate has pushed the percentage of managers and executives relocating for new jobs down to just 6.9% in the third quarter of this year, a record low, down from 13.4% in the same period in 2009.The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 167 metropolitan areas have seen unemployment rates drop over the past 12 months. And as of August, joblessness in 232 cities fell below the national average of 9.6%, and employers in 27 states had created a total of 500,600 new jobs.

Job seekers who own a home and want to sell it really have no other choice but to stay there because they will face a huge loss if they leave. Relocation has been declining since the early '90's. From a record high of 49.2% in 1993, the number of managers and executives moving to take new jobs fell off gradually through the rest of the decade and has stayed below 20% since 2001. This decline is mostly from the Internet because the Internet not only helps look for jobs, but it also gives people the opportunity to work from their homes or anywhere for that matter.