Mortgage Jobs Dip; Brokers Exiting?

Employment in the mortgage sector fell slightly from its historically high level in September, and it appears that mortgage brokers may be exiting the market, according to the October employment report released Nov. 5 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.The BLS report shows that jobs in the mortgage banking/broker sector fell by 100 full-time positions in September to 458,600. (There is a one-month lag in BLS reporting of mortgage-sector employment data, and the October data will not be released until Dec. 3.) The data show that mortgage companies added 3,500 employees to the payrolls in September, while the number of mortgage brokers declined by 3,600. Meanwhile, the BLS report shows that the U.S. economy generated 337,000 new jobs of October -- the biggest increase since March. The credit intermediation industry added 8,000 jobs in October, the BLS said. The BLS can be found online at http://stats.bls.gov.