Mortgage Brokers Were Hiring in July

Nonbank mortgage lenders added 300 employees to their payrolls in July despite rising mortgage rates and falling refinancing activity, according to a new government report.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning that employment in the mortgage banking and brokerage sector edged up to 295,300 in July from 295,000 in June on a nonadjusted basis.

However, mortgage banking companies laid off 900 full-time employees in July while mortgage brokers hired 1,200 new employees, according to the BLS report.

Overall, Friday's jobs report shows employment in the mortgage sector is up 7.5% from July 2012.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy created 169,000 new jobs in August, up from a downwardly revised 104,000 in July. A month ago BLS reported 162,000 jobs were created in July.

Hiring in the construction trades was not robust either. Multifamily and single-family builders and contractors hired 4,300 new construction workers in August, down from 6,300 in the prior month.

Despite the disappointing jobs report, the unemployment rate edged down to 7.3% in August from 7.4% in July.

(There is a one-month lag in the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting of mortgage employment data.)