Despite a solid improvement in U.S. employment and an increase in non-bank mortgage lending jobs, mortgage broker staffing contracted.
U.S. employers added a healthy 211,000 nonfarm jobs during November, according to data released Friday by the Department of Labor.
A month earlier, there were an upwardly revised 298,000 jobs added. A year earlier, an upwardly revised 423,000 jobs were added.
The unemployment rate
was 5.0 percent last month, the same as in October. Unemployment has fallen from 5.8 percent in November 2014.
In just the mortgage industry, there were 298,800 non-bank jobs as of October.
Mortgage employment was modestly lower than 299,700 in September.
The month-earlier number was originally reported at 299,800.
But there were more jobs in home lending than in October 2014, when 284,000 people worked at non-bank firms. The year-earlier figure was originally reported at 289,400.
The October 2015 mortgage total included 223,000 positions classified as “real estate credit,” more than the 222,600 a month prior and 211,400 a year prior.
Also factored in were 75,800 “mortgage and nonmortgage loan brokers.”
Broker jobs declined from September, when there were 77,100 employees, but was up from October of last year, when the total was 72,600.
Based on an analysis of Labor Department data and origination market share data and including jobs at financial institutions,
Mortgage Daily estimates that there were a total of 588,500 people working in real estate finance as of the latest month.
Estimated total mortgage jobs slipped from
590,200 as of September 2015 but grew from 569,600 in October 2014.
The October 2015 total was comprised of an estimated 229,100 mortgage jobs at banks, 60,500 positions at credit unions and the 298,800 non-bank jobs reported by the Labor Department.
