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Are the current Wall Street layoffs the worst ever? What do they mean for the real estate market?

Let’s take a look at some historical data from the New York State Department of Labor:

Peak Date     Peak Employment     Trough Date     Trough Employment     Job Loss

Jul ‘69         111,600                            Oct ‘70               82,900                             25.7%

Jul ‘71           90,000                            Jan ‘75               65,300                             27.4%

Dec ‘87           163,000                        Oct ‘91                127,800                            21.6%

Dec ‘00           200,300                       Apr ‘03                159,000                          20.6%

Aug ‘07            191,800                        TBD                    TBD                                 TBD

Source: New York State Department of Labor. Current Economic Statistics Survey as Printed in “Employment in New York State” newsletter, July ‘08

If the current dropoff is in line with previous slumps, we should expect a loss of around 40,000-50,000 New York City Wall Street jobs.

That will obviously impact the housing market, though by how much is going to depend on other factors. Oldsters like me tie the NYC housing downturn of the late ’80s/early ’90s  — which was anecdotally 30-50% peak-to-trough, depending on what kind of building you lived in –  to simultaneous high interest rates.

We didn’t see that magnitude of price drop in 00/03, when Wall Street was suffering roughly equally but interest rates were “relatively” good.