According to Fitch Ratings, a global rating agency committed to providing the world’s credit markets with independent and prospective credit opinions, research, and data, serious delinquencies on jumbo mortgages rose for the 32nd straight month in January.  Serious delinquencies are payments at least 60 days late and jumbo mortgages are  loans larger than Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac can finance.

For most states, loans larger than Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac can finance is $417,000.  Alaska and Hawaii, however, reach up to $625,000.

The increase in delinquencies was the 32nd straight monthly increase and neared 10% - some forecasters predict the rate to reach 10% by next month.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its employment numbers today - a drop from 10% in December to a 9.7% unemployment rate in January.  A large section of the increase in jobs came from temporary and contract workers sector, which added 52,000 jobs last month.  Factories added 11,000 workers, their first increase since January 2007 and biggest increase since April 2006.  However, the factories increase was largely due to an increase in temporary workers.

Manufacturing may lead the labor-market rebound as it brings in workers to push inventory levels up to a balance, but an increase in temporary workers is not all positive news.  The firms’ decision to take on temporary workers, instead of more permanent ones, is a clear tell on their hand - they don’t have confidence in the future.  Although, it is likely factories will continue to take on workers to approach normal inventory levels, pullbacks are still possible.  If the firms thought it was likely that they would have a continued need for these workers, meaning demand would continue steadily, then they would’ve taken on permanent employees.

President Obama stated this morning, ”These numbers, while positive, are a cause for hope, but not celebration, because far too many of our neighbors and friends and family are still out of work.”  He added the numbers were also likely to fluctuate - touching on the same thought manufacturing firms have, a lack of stability.

Automatic Data Processing (ADP), a payroll processing company, released their employment report today.  ADP’s employment report is a measure of employment derived from an anonymous subset of ADP’s roughly 500,000 U.S. business clients.  The ADP National Employment Report  indicated a decrease of 22,000 jobs in non-farm private employment.  Is the ADP report an indicator of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment number will look like on Friday?  Below is a representation of how the ADP report has performed as a leading indicator for the BLS report.

If past results are an indication of future results, in this case they probably are, then it would seem the ADP is typically off from the BLS.  Lately, ADP’s results have been overly pessimistic - indicating more jobs lost than gained.  If this holds true through Friday then we at least know that BLS shouldn’t be reporting jobs lost to be greater than 22,000.

The Institute for Supply Chain Management released data on the service sector as well today.  The ISM nonmanufacturing index increased to 50.5 from 49.8 in December.  A number above 50 in the index indicates expansion in activity.  The services sector is still lagging way behind manufacturing as its index rose to a high of 58.4 in January.