Although the number of jobs added in all American industries weakened last month, the government revised up its estimate of non-mortgage jobs for each month of last year.
U.S. employers added 151,000 jobs during January — the lowest number since September 2015 — according to a report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Job growth sank compared to the final month of last year, when 262,000 positions were added,
and the first month of last year, a month that saw growth of 221,000 new jobs.
“Turbulence in the stock market and fears for the prospects of global growth are likely taking a toll, but the overall picture is one of a labor market that is drawing near to full employment,” National Association of Federal Credit Unions Chief Economist Curt Long said in a statement. “While nominal wage growth is still slightly below historical norms, it is still outpacing inflation by a decent margin. Moreover, we have seen meaningful improvements in the participation rate over the past six months which suggests that more sidelined workers are being brought back into the labor pool.”
One good bit of data from the employment report was that the unemployment rate fell to 4.9 percent — the lowest rate since February 2008.
Unemployment was 5.0 percent in December 2015 and 5.7 percent in January 2015.
In just the mortgage industry, which the BLS reports on a one-month lag, there were 301,400 non-bank jobs as of
December.
Mortgage employment inched up from 301,300 in November. The prior-month number was revised up from
298,600 originally reported.
In fact, the total for every month of 2015 was revised higher in the most-recent report.
In December 2014, the mortgage jobs total was
289,100, revised up from 288,100 originally reported.
The most-recent mortgage total included
220,800 jobs classified as “real estate credit,” fewer than 221,300 as of November.
Another 80,600 “mortgage and non-mortgage loan brokers” were reflected in the December 2015 total,
more than 80,000 a month earlier.
Utilizing the BLS data, as well as origination market share data,
Mortgage Daily estimates that total mortgage industry employment — including jobs at financial institutions — came to 648,000 in the final month of last year.
Mortgage jobs slipped from an estimated 647,800 in November.
But the sector gained from December 2014, when the estimated total was 643,600.
The December 2015 mortgage total was comprised of
286,200 home lending employees at banks, 60,400 positions at credit unions and the 301,400 non-bank jobs reported by the BLS.
