But data from last month’s employment report, the last under the Bush administration, reflected November mortgage employment of 337,600 — 52,800 jobs more than the new Barack Obama administration reported for the same month.

The bureau, in an announcement last week, indicated it would impose more scrutiny on individual state estimates. The intensified scrutiny led to a substantial divergence from the bureau’s results with nearly half of the states.

“The changes that [the Bureau of Labor Statistics] implemented to the state estimates review process more closely align it with the national estimate review process, and strengthen the consistency and transparency of the current employment statistics state estimation process,” last week’s statement said.

December’s figure included 204,900 people working in “real estate credit,” down from 241,300 the prior year and 208,600 the prior month. The previous report reflected 228,400 jobs in real estate credit during November.

“Mortgage and nonmortgage loan brokers” were 75,100, down from 98,400 in December 2007 and edging lower from 76,200 in November. The Bush administration reported brokers at 109,200 for November.

The numbers exclude temporary mortgage employees — which have seen thousands of assignments recently as mortgage rates briefly fell to record lows. In addition, growing FHA and reverse lending mortgage bankers have been adding staff on an ongoing basis.

But December layoffs still outpaced hirings in the mortgage sector. Contributing to the month’s job losses were the following companies.

Overall U.S. employment was down “sharply” by 598,000 in January and is down 3.6 million since December 2007, according to the bureau, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Unemployment rose to 7.6 percent last month from 7.2 percent in December.

“In January, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors,” the report said.