O.C. real estate and finance companies have trimmed 36,000 jobs - or 1-in-7 of the workers - since falling off its 2006 peak. New state job stats show ...

  • Employment in real estate/finance industries - from brokers to lenders to construction workers - to lumberyard employees to janitors - at 225,000 in December. The last time real estate/finance employment was this low in O.C. was in January 2004.
  • Employment in these property-related niches topped out at 261,000 jobs in September 2006.
  • Lending has been hardest hit, off 22,500 workers - 41% - since its peak. Construction's lost 13,200 - 12% - of its local workforce.

Here's key real estate/lending job slices, their job counts last month and how that compares to a year ago:

Construction 97,200 -3,600 -3.6%
• Construct buildings 22,100 -1,500 -6.4%
• Heavy construction 8,100 -200 -2.4%
• Specialty trades 67,000 -1,900 -2.8%
Lending activities 32,600 -5,300 -14.0%
• Bank lending 17,300 -1,300 -7.0%
• Non-bank lending 11,300 -2,900 -20.4%
• Lending support 4,000 -1,100 -21.6%
Other finance 10,500 -300 -2.8%
Real estate/leasing 36,500 -2,200 -5.7%
• Real estate 30,600 -1,600 -5.0%
• Leasing 5,900 -600 -9.2%
Bldg. services 32,700 -400 -1.2%
Building supply 10,900 -600 -5.2%
Farm 4,600 +300 +7.0%
All real-estate related 225,000 -12,100 -5.1%
All other O.C. jobs 1,249,800 -29,000 -2.3%
All O.C. jobs 1,474,800 -41,100 -2.7%

 

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