Experts agree, job creation is critical to getting the housing and mortgage markets back on track – both in curbing delinquencies by ensuring homeowners have the ability to keep up with their mortgage payments and in giving consumers the confidence and security they need to become homebuyers.

If unemployment remains elevated for an extended period, the housing recovery is expected to grind along at a snail’s pace. Currently the nation’s unemployment rate sits at a 26-year high. But what can we expect heading into the new year?

According to Patrick Newport, U.S. economist, for the international research firm IHS Global Insight, “The key for housing in 2011 and thereafter is employment growth….The economy is likely to deliver on jobs going forward. We expect the economy to add about 2.2 million more jobs in 2011 and 2.9 million more in 2012.”

David Shulman, a senior economist with UCLA, commented, “Unfortunately, even with the jobs gains averaging 150,000 per a month in 2011 and 200,000 a month in 2012, unemployment will remain above 9 percent through the third quarter of 2012.”

The latest Employment Outlook Survey from Manpower, Inc., which queried more than 18,000 employers, found that 14 percent anticipate an increase in staff levels in their Q1 2011 hiring plans, while 10 percent expect a decrease in payrolls, resulting in a net employment outlook of +4 percent.

Seventy- three percent of employers expect no change in their hiring plans, according to Manpower’s survey. The final 3 percent indicate they are undecided about their hiring intentions over the first three months of 2011.

“Despite the challenging economic climate, many CFOs have growing confidence that their companies have weathered the worst of the storm and are poised for expansion,” said Laura Whitley, global commercial products executive at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Although concerns about the economy remain, the increase in CFOs who expect to hire employees could be crucial to improving the nation’s unemployment rate.”