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The article, Slowdown Spreads Beyond Housing, from Arizona's Economy, reports on Marshall Vest's latest take on the economy and housing market. Marshall Vest is the Forecasting Director for the Eller College of Management at the U of A. In his March quarterly newsletter, he states that the homebuilding industry is in recession, and its plunge is beginning to look a lot like the roller-coaster cycles of the 1970's and 1980's. Over the last 40 years, there have been four homebuilding recessions: the mid 1970's, the early 1980's, the mid 1980's and the late 1990's.  During the first three recessionary periods, residential building permits declined between 69% and 78% from peak to through. The late 1990's downturn had only a modest 11.6% decline. Each of the earlier downturns was followed by a national recession. He is concerned with the loss of construction jobs, which comprise 9.5% of all non-farm jobs. Combined with Realtors, mortgage brokers, title companies, home inspection companies, engineers and others whose jobs depend on a growing housing market, close to 20% of all non-farm jobs are tied to the housing market.

http://ebr.eller.arizona.edu/azeconomy/azeconomy.aspx?issue=AZE07SPR