A report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram last Friday said that Tarrant County lost 16,400 non-farm payroll jobs last in January, rocketing the area’s unemployment rate to 7.1 percent.
The jump in jobless numbers, up from 5.7 in December and 2.5 points higher than the January 2008 rate of 4.6 percent, are responsible for higher delinquency rates for homeowners, according to a study released by the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s chief economist and senior vice president for research and economics, said in the report that while California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona and Michigan continue to dominate the delinquency numbers, the sharpest increases in loans 90 days or more delinquent in the last quarter of 2008 were in Louisiana, New York, Georgia, Texas and Mississippi.
He sighted the growing numbers in those states as “signs of the spreading impact of the recession.”
Even though the area has been less affected by the economic downturn, a report on bankruptcy filings in Texas Northern District Bankruptcy Court showed that its case filings were up 4 percent in 2008.
The rising unemployment numbers also don’t bode well for the area which, while not unaffected by the economic crisis, hasn’t seen as quite as many layoffs in the downturn as some parts of the country.
Some of the area’s largest employers, like American Airlines and General Motors, may still layoff more workers as the economic downturn cuts into the companies’ bottom lines.
