The NYT reports on the big job losses in the mortgage industry.

Lenders like New Century Financial and Ownit, many of them based in Southern California, have cut an estimated 12,000 mortgage jobs in California since the start of 2006, according to MortgageDaily.com, a trade publication. Nationally, 16,000 jobs have been lost.

Notice that 3/4 of the job losses are in CA.  We are being hit hardest by the job losses in mortgage lending.

But the California labor department data shows a loss of only 1,600 jobs in the sector since 1/06.  Since the peak in November 2005, Credit Intermediation, the categoy in which we find mortgage brokers, has lost only 2,800 jobs.

So we have MortgageDaily.com vs. CA EDD's payroll survey.  I will email this article to both, and post any response. 

Update on Tuesday, May 8, 2007 at 02:00PM by Schahrzad Berkland

Last weekend, I met a casualty of the mortgage industry, a car wash cashier in his late 20's - early 30's.  In March, he was laid off from a job he'd just started last fall, for a mortgage company.  They paid him a good salary of $35K plus commissions.  But with business slow, they let him go.  Now he makes $8.50/hr.  Oh, and he has retail management experience, but as he said, there are no hirings there either because, "people are not buying $1200 barbeques anymore".

Update on Wednesday, May 9, 2007 at 10:01AM by Schahrzad Berkland

Please read my prior article on construction job losses which do not show up in the official data.