Real estate-related employment is at a nine-year high in Orange County, not too far from a record high.

Is that good news – or a warning sign the market’s gotten too hot again?

The volatility of local real estate doesn’t just show up in property values. Job opportunities see-saw with industry fortunes. For example, seven years of real estate employment growth to 2006 was entirely wiped out in four, short years after the bubble burst.

To judge how the recent hiring spree measures up, I filled my trusty spreadsheet with state jobs data dating to 1990 for Orange County, carving out a local real estate employment category including work in construction, building supply, building services, property sales and rentals, lending and architecture and engineering.

What I found is local real estate’s significant slice of the recent economic recovery. Property-related jobs are now an above-average chunk of overall local employment thanks to an eye-catching hiring push. I’m sure that makes some observers gulp.

But to somewhat calm nerves, note this recent boost for real estate workers isn’t as large as the employment run-up we saw during the formation of last decade’s real estate insanity.

Here are five noteworthy trends making Orange County real estate workers happy … and the rest of us hold our breath that this isn’t a worrisome, overdone upswing:

1. Real estate jobs aren’t all the way back.

Orange County bosses in property-related fields are on pace to employ 250,000 workers this year. (As a comparison, leisure and hospitality industries employ 216,000 locally.) This is real estate employment’s largest workforce since 2007 – arguably the peak of the previous real estate insanity – but it’s still 15,000 or so below the all-time high set in 2006.

2. Property-related work is a big local slice.

Real estate this year represents 15.7 percent of all local jobs in 2016 – up from a post-recession low of 14 percent and the highest share since 2007. Please note that since 1990, real estate has averaged employing 14.7 percent of all Orange County workers with its biggest share – 17.3 percent – coming in 2006.

3. It’s a 2016 hiring spree.

Local real estate bosses are on pace to add 14,800 workers this year, the biggest jump in real estate ranks since 2004. It’s one-third of all local hires, and the 6.3 percent growth rate is almost triple the 2.2 percent year-over-year hiring pace of all other Orange County employers.

4. That hiring is no anomaly.

Local real estate lost 73,000 jobs from 2006 to 2010, but the industry rebounded to add 58,000 local jobs in the last six years. That’s a growth rate averaging 4.5 percent a year, outpacing the rest of the Orange County job market, which has grown at a 2.1 percent annual rate since 2010.

5. Noteworthy rebound.

Real estate’s 2010-16 job rebound equaled 27 percent of the 216,500 jobs added by all Orange County employers, or nearly twice real estate’s share of local employment. But note this real estate expansion’s scope pales to the previous boom’s pace: Property-industry bosses added 54,300 in four years through 2006, hiring equal to 46 percent of all local jobs added in the four-year period. We know how that ended.

Contact the writer: jlansner@ocregister.com