Mortgage Businesses Seen Laying Off Thousands as Volume Drops
- Some staff can be moved to other businesses, but many can’t
- Refinancing applications drop by about 45% in six months
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U.S. home mortgage lenders have spent much of the last two years hiring. Now they might have to spend the coming months laying workers off.
The number of people working as brokers for mortgages and other kinds of loans, a proxy for total home lending employment, has surged more than 50% to around 130,000 since late 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s right around the highest level since early 2006, just before the financial crisis.