Mortgage Jobs Jump

Mortgage lenders added 5,200 full-time employees to their payrolls in April, according to the May employment report released June 4 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.The BLS report shows that jobs in the mortgage banking/broker sector rose from 444,700 in March to 448,900 in April. (There is a one-month lag in BLS's reporting of mortgage sector employment data.) Mortgage rates averaged 5.81% in April and demand for purchase mortgages was at record levels. The June 4 jobs report shows that the economy generated 248,000 new jobs in May and the unemployment rate remained at 5.6%. "Employment in financial activities rose by 15,000 in May, reflecting continued increases in real estate and in credit intermediation," the BLS said. The BLS can be found online at http://stats.bls.gov.