January 9, 2007 (LPAC)--The residential construction/real estate sector fired nearly half a million workers in 2007, as a result of the demise of the real estate bubble. This is prelude to the debacle that is unfolding in 2008, when one million more workers will likely be fired. According to the massaged, unreliable figures of the U.S. Department of Labor, between Dec., 2006 and Dec. 2007, 69,400 workers lost jobs in Residential Construction, which is the building of the outer and inner structure of the homes, etc.; another 125,200 workers lost jobs in Residential Specialty Trades, which is workers who work in plumbing, electricians, drive-way construction; etc. Thus, the total loss of physical residential construction jobs reached 196,400, which must be taken as a bare minimal figure.

As well, during the Dec. 2006 to Dec. 2007 period, 103,200 workers lost their jobs in the combined sectors of Real Estate Credit, and Mortgage Loan Brokers.

But the loss of residential construction-related jobs was far greater, which the BLS doesn't want to acknowledge.

The U.S. Department of Labor creates phantom job growth, imputing to new, small businesses which the BLS assumed were started up during the year, and which it assumed created those jobs, based on previous years' statistics. By this manner, between Dec. 2006 and Dec. 2007, the BLS assumed that 138,000 jobs were created by small businesses in construction, which inflated the construction employment figures. By composition, at least half of those non-existent jobs would have been added to inflate Residential Construction, or 69,000. Minusing out those 69,000 non-existent jobs adds 69,000 more unemployed to the Residential Construction Sector.

Above all, based on field reports from LPAC and the LYM, at minimum 100,000 undocumented Hispanic workers, who work off the books building homes, have been fired from construction jobs, but do not show up in official Department of Labor Statistics. That's an additional 100,000 Residential Construction layoffs.

Thus, between Dec. 2006 and Dec. 2007, at least 467,000 U.S. workers were fired in Residential Construction. With the already ongoing financial-economic collapse gaining gale wind force, 2008 would be a much bigger catastrophe.