Record low rates appear to be having a positive impact on mortgage employment, with much of the growth happening on the East Coast. But mortgage broker jobs didn’t fare so well.
The number of mortgage jobs was up by 2,300 positions in July, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Headcount in the real estate finance sector climbed to 246,700 employees from June’s revised 244,400. The bureau, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor, said there were a revised 264,400 people working in mortgage-related jobs a year earlier.
July’s strength was in “real estate credit” positions, which the bureau said climbed to 189,900 from 187,100 the previous month.
Much of July’s expansion appears concentrated in the East.
ServiceLink reported in August the addition of 150 people in Virginia during the prior 18 months. Zenta Mortgage Services said last month that it has hired more than 350 North Carolina employees since late 2009. Digital Risk LLC added 100 Florida employees since May, while Kislak is in the process of adding 150 Florida jobs.
But growth is also occurring further west.
In Texas, United Tech Lender Services Inc. said in June that nearly half of the 100 employees it planned to hire over the next year would be immediately recruited, while some of the 600 Oregon jobs that are expected to be added by Wilshire Credit Corp. were expected to occur in July.
But “mortgage and nonmortgage loan brokers” saw their numbers decline to 56,800 from June’s 57,300, today’s report indicated.
U.S. nonfarm payroll employment nudged down 54,000 jobs in August, according to the data. As 114,000 temporary census employees came off of government payrolls, government employment declined. But private-sector jobs expanded by 67,000.
Unemployment was unchanged from July at 9.6 percent.
