San Jose resident Jim Mielke was gassing up his work van this morning at a Shell station on The Alameda, which set him back just over $90. He’s deferring some home improvements because of the rise in gas and food prices. By not spending money, he realizes he’s hurting the home improvement store or the materials supplier, which impacts their ability to keep employees on the payroll.

On the other side of the pump, contractor Dave Caputo confirms that work has been slow because of people cutting back on non-essential spending, not to mention the slowdown in real estate sales and the related drop in repair and remodeling jobs.

That cycle is contributing to the unexpected drop in job creation in May. The Labor Department said only 54,000 new jobs were added last month. That’s the lowest number in eight months. Economists had been projecting double that number.

Professor Mario Belotti, Ph.D., an economist at Santa Clara University said it’s not just a downturn in consumer spending that’s causing employers to throttle back. It’s also the impact Japan’s earthquake and tsunami have had on the auto industry, economic turmoil engulfing several European Union countries, and on-going civil strife in Northern Africa and the Middle East.

We are also talking to tech companies in Silicon Valley and job seekers who have been searching for work for two to three years. We’ll have an updated story later today online and on ABC7 News at 5.

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Article source: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/consumer&id=8169621

Earlier this week I did a piece on television about how many job seekers are frozen in place because they can’t sell their homes to relocate for a new job.

More than a quarter of U.S. borrowers owe more on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth. We call that in a “negative equity position” or “underwater.”

“I had an example last week of someone who was on the East Coast and there was an opportunity on the West Coast. Great paying job, and the family just could not afford to take a $250,000 loss on their house. That employee, prospective employee had to forgo that opportunity,” recalled Gary Burnison, CEO of Korn Ferry International, an executive recruiting firm.

I decided to dig a little deeper into this phenomenon and found another fascinating story: Temporary corporate housing is seeing a boom, and it’s not just in big rental apartment buildings. Job seekers are actually renting out their own homes as corporate housing, so they can take a job somewhere else and not have to sell at a loss.

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Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43269087?__source=RSS*blog*&par=RSS