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The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 36,000 private sector jobs in February. January was revised from -20k to -26k jobs lost and December was revised from -150k to -109k jobs lost. This means 25 of the last 26 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since the recession began in December 2007 at 8.4 million. In 2009, 4.8m jobs were lost. BLS also reported that 14.8 million people are unemployed. This is a 9.7% unemployment rate, up 4.8% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 8.8 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 4.1m million since January 2008, and increased by 500k this month, offsetting a big drop in January. January’s drop from 9.2m to 8.3m was the first improvement in nine months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 8.8 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 8.8 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. Markets are interpreting today’s report as positive—stocks are rallying, bonds are selling off, and rates are higher—but this statistic is mostly undiscussed in market coverage.

An Underwriter Explains Why Are Loans So Hard To Approve
Lately I have been hearing from producers, some of whom are upset about the current lending environment, some not. But for a slightly different view of things, here is what one very experienced and knowledgeable underwriter wrote to me. This is worth the read even for consumers who wonder why their loans are so hard to do:

“It used to be that we could ‘underwrite’ a loan and use common sense to navigate individual circumstances and actually make a decision that a loan was a good credit risk. Then DU and LP [Fannie and Freddie's automated underwriting engines] came along and gave us the laundry list that had to be followed. We were still able to manually underwrite loans for those transactions that did not fit the box. Then the bottom fell out of the business and everyone got scared and new rules came out. Investors and Wall Street were to blame for allowing individuals who were not telling the truth to buy homes. Today investors are pre-underwriting loans prior to purchase and we have to ‘march to their tune’ including getting pieces of paper that seem ridiculous, but since we need the investor to purchase the loan so we obtain them anyway. Only the most qualified borrowers with all their ducks in a row get loans these days. Manually underwritten loans are subject to scrutiny such as we have never seen before and frankly, we do not have the courage to paint outside of the lines because we cannot afford to have a loan purchase refused. Today, it takes two to three times as long to underwrite a loan and we have checklist upon checklist that help us make sure all of the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed. I have been doing this for over 30 years and frankly we are back to the rules of the early 80’s or worse when it comes to documentation.” more…

Market Reaction To Greece’s Plans, ADP Shows 20k Jobs Lost
Greece announced a well-publicized $5.4 billion plan to cut its deficit (3rd one in 3 months), which of course has their workers protesting. Taking a longer term view, these measures should help the country. Depending on the news from Greece, money either flows in to or out of our Treasury market with the “safe haven, flight to quality” attitude. Greece cutting its massive budget deficit by 4% is obviously a help. (10-yr Notes in Greece yield about 6 %.) ADP showed February private sector jobs declining 20,000, with a back-month revision. Later this morning we’ll see some ISM numbers, and the Beige Book, but overnight (and for now) the rate markets are pretty quiet with the 10-yr sitting around 3.63% and mortgages slightly better given some intra-day price improvements yesterday.

Foreign Investment … In Detroit
Foreign intrigue is always interesting (check today’s joke at the bottom) as is a foreign report (in this case, British) on property values in Detroit. $1 for a house sounds tempting. more…

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 20,000 private sector jobs in January, and December was revised from -85k to -150k. This means 24 of the last 25 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 8.42 million. In 2009, 4.8m jobs were lost. BLS also reported that 14.8 million people are unemployed. This is a 9.7% unemployment rate, up 4.8% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 8.3 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 3.6 million since January 2008, but dropped significantly this month for the fist time in nine months (it was 9.2m last month). This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 8.3 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 8.3 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. But the significant drop this month along with the drop in unemployment is encouraging. more…

Hitler on Home Appraisals
OK, for anyone who deals with appraisals in any form, here’s a great YouTube video: a Hitler rant on new appraisal regulations. One of the better lines is, “Wells Fargo and BofA getting appraisals done by appraisal companies they own – It’s like Michael Jackson running a freaking boys camp! My E&O is going to go through the roof!” Definitely worth 2-3 minutes.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 85,000 private sector jobs in December, and November was revised to a positive 4,000 jobs. This means 23 of the last 24 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 7.24 million, which is the largest drop (as a percentage of all jobs) since World War II ended in 1945. In 2009, 4.16 million jobs were lost. BLS also reported that 15.3 million people are unemployed. This is a 10% unemployment rate, up 5.1% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 9.2 million people (unchanged from last month) who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 4.5 million since January 2008, but has been little changed in the past eight months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 9.2 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 9.2 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. more…

Today, ADP, a provider of payroll services to 22 million Americans employed in the private sector, released their monthly jobs data which showed that the economy lost -84k jobs in December. This was a bit worse than expected, but the November number was revised better from -169k to -145k. Although overall economic activity is stabilizing and this was the least amount of job losses reported by ADP since March 2008, employment usually trails economic activity, so it is likely to decline for at least a few more months. This slowing of job losses will be confirmed Friday when the official Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report comes out Friday. You can view previous months of both reports by clicking the ADP and BLS tags below, and you can also scroll to our data section to review current and historical jobs data.

After reporting numbers way under official BLS numbers throughout 2008, ADP reports started tracking closer to the official government jobs report produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics later in 2009. But ADP is not totally reliable since for example the BLS report for November showed 11k jobs lost and the (original) ADP November number was -169k. The jobs report has a large impact on markets, and mortgage rates always move on this report since it’s such a broad measure of the economy, covering consumer strength, unemployment and wage inflation. Rates are still holding within .25% of the lowest levels since 1971—the lowest on official record. More details from the ADP report below: more…

Following Obama’s job stimulus announcement Tuesday, Bloomberg just released a poll showing that Americans agree with the plan to create jobs through spending on public work and alternative energy initiatives. The poll also shows that Americans also want the deficit reduced, with two-thirds of respondents favor taxing the rich to do this. If only it was that simple. Here’s detailed poll results. Also below is Obama’s speech on job stimulus.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 11,000 private sector jobs in November. This is the 23rd straight month of losses, putting the job loss toll since January 2008 at 7.16 million, with 4.08 million of these job losses occurring in 2009. After six straight months of losses greater than 500k from November 2008 to April 2009, job losses leveled off despite one spike in June 2009, and today’s report is a big surprise with losses decreasing so significantly. BLS also reported that 15.4 million people are unemployed. This is a 10% unemployment rate, up 5.1% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 9.2 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 4.5 million since January 2008, but has been little changed in the past seven months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 9.2 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 9.2 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. more…

After touching the lowest levels on official record before Thanksgiving (see link), rates are now about .1% higher than that. Rates change daily as mortgage bonds trade. Rates held lows coming into this week due to scares about Dubai’s ability to service their debt, and as that subsided, we end the week with the best jobs report since the recession began in December 2007: only 11,000 private sector jobs were lost in November and unemployment decreased from 10.2% to 10%. Still a staggering unemployment rate, but a move down is significant, as is the decrease in job losses. Of course bond markets sell off on positive economic news like this, and when that happens, yields (or rates) rise.

The biggest scheduled news next week is November Retail Sales on Friday which will capture Black Friday figures and confirm whether initial holiday shopping reports are high or low. The initial National Retail Federation report showed that more people spent less to kick off holiday season: 195m shoppers visited stores and websites vs. 172m last year, but average spending dropped to $343.31 per person from $372.57 last year. Total spending reached an estimated $41.2 billion. This key measure of consumer strength carries a lot of weight with investors this time of year, so stock and bond/rate markets will surely swing on this data. more…