The Sunday Times claims 5,000 estate and letting agents have quit the industry in the past 12 months, while an additional 16,000 have left other parts of the property business.
The figures, sourced from the Office for National Statistics, is in a piece by experienced property journalist Ross Clark on changes in the industry over recent years.
He says that despite the recent fall, ONS data suggests between April and June this year no fewer than 337,000 people - more than one in 92 of the working population - were employed in property-related activity. Clark estimates some 50,000 were estate or letting agents.
This is higher than in 2006, at the peak of the industry before the long downturn, when the ONS suggests 39,000 people worked as estate or letting agents. By 2010, as the recession grew, this number dwindled to 28,000.
The National Association of Estate Agents, the largest agency trade body and also cited in the article, has some 14,600 members.
The piece also looks at Rightmove, saying it employed an average of 388 people in 2014.
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Interesting to see that there are roughly twice as many agents now than in 2010. Increased number of back-bedroom operators could be responsible for this perhaps?
So what's the WHY? they've left????
The NAEA doesn't have 14,600 members but NFOPP does
Not correct, hundreds of live vacancies and not enough people to go round.
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