U.S. Stocks Rallied again yesterday as corporate earnings and a good jobs report strengthened our confidence in investing. According to Investopedia, “The Market Sum,” by Caleb Silver, “We are six weeks deep into a stock market rally, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 1987.”
U.S. employers added an average of 223,000 jobs per month in 2018, much higher than the 170,000 per month predicted. 248,000 of those jobs were in the manufacturing sector, putting a dent in the 1.2 million manufacturing jobs wiped out in the last recession (Investopedia.com).
U.S. Occupations
If you want to know what type of jobs are in the U.S. labor market, you need to look at both the occupation (worker) and the industry (employer). You can use occupational employment statistics (OES) (published by the US Department of Labor at https://www.bls.gov/oes/) to compare occupations. You can see employment levels and wages for occupations where you live or in the type of business where you work.
According to the OES for the nation, retail sales person is the largest occupation. Next is food preparation and serving persons; then cashiers, office clerks, registered nurses, customer service representatives, laborers and freight movers, waitresses and waiters, secretaries, and general operations managers. These are the top ten occupations in the country. Manufacturing is not there — yet.
Loan Officer in Texas
You can look up “Loan Officer” though, and there are 307,240 loan officers making a mean hourly wage of $37.00 an hour, and interestingly enough, Texas has the second highest number of working loan officers (20, 810), second to California (39,520), with a mean annual income of $86,460.
Strangely, the top paying metropolitan area in the country for this occupation is Laredo, Texas, with a mean annual salary of $131,200. They don’t say how many loan officers there are in Laredo making this salary though. Lubbock, Texas is in seventh place on the top ten, with 260 loan officers, making a mean annual salary of $117,500 each. Number eight is Victoria, Texas, with 70 loan officers making a mean annual salary of $114,230 each.
So What? I think this means that Texas has a lot of money to lend.
Real Estate Brokers
What do the statistics say about “Real Estate Brokers?” First, there are 36,410 real estate brokers working in real estate in the U.S., with others working in management, building construction, credit, and business and professional organizations. Texas is fifth, with 2,290 workers employed in this occupation, compared to California with 5,570. In Texas, Dallas-Plano-Irving is the Texas metropolitan area on the list of areas with the highest employment level in real estate brokering, 830 brokers with a mean annual salary of $80,410.
Cowboys
Sad as it may sound, the song is right. “Mothers, don’t let your sons grow up to be cowboys.” I could find hunters and trappers on the list of occupations, but no cowboys. That cannot be right. This is Texas!
An occupation gives us purpose and confidence. Work is good.
I am a real estate broker. I work with people, land, homes, and money. I, myself, only see the back end of a cow when I visit Kansas. What could get better than that.
If you or your partner have a real estate purchase you would like to make or money you would like to invest in a real estate project, don’t forget, I’m on the net, in the book, and this is what I love to do.
Pat St. Cin
Patrick@InvestorsLendingSource.com
512-213-2271
Austin, Texas
References:
The Market Sum, by Caleb Silver at Investopedia.com
US Department of Labor at https://www.bls.gov/oes/
Cowboy hats. Nika Vee, Austin [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
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