The Labor Department released jobs data this morning, noting a rise in the unemployment rate to 4.7 percent last month from 4.6 percent in August but somewhat better news on the job creation front. The AP reports:

The new job market snapshot released by the Labor Department on Friday showed that employers boosted payrolls by 110,000, the most in one month since last May. In an encouraging note, the economy actually added 89,000 jobs in August. That marked an improvement from the net loss of 4,000 that the government first estimated.

But construction companies cut jobs by 14,000 last month and by more than 100,000 over the last 12 months, the government said. 

And The Los Angeles Times has two interesting stories today (well, OK, more than two, but two related to the housing market). One reports on a housing crunch in China, where prices have risen to levels many workers can't afford:

Of Shanghai's 20 million residents, 2 million to 3 million are thought to be part of the city's "floating population." There may be jobs for them, but where to live is another matter.

It's reached the point of "collective rentals," where people -- 17, in one example -- crowd into the same apartment.

The other Times story says the too-loose lending standards of 2006 actually worsened in the beginning of 2007:

The sub-prime loans backing mortgage bonds created early this year are going bad even faster than those issued in early 2006, a year that set a record for delinquencies on such loans, according to two new studies.

Meanwhile, I report today on an analysis of federal data showing that African-American borrowers in Maryland actually bought slightly more homes last year than in 2005, and that the drop among Hispanic borrowers was only modest -- at a time when overall sales fell sharply. Some cheer the thought of more homeownership. Others, noting that more than 40 percent of African-American and Hispanic buyers got subprime loans last year, are worried:

The Center for Responsible Lending, which has criticized loan terms given to subprime borrowers, says that about one in five U.S. and Maryland homeowners who got subprime loans last year will end up losing their homes. It was a particularly bad lending year, the center said, with "extremely stretched" borrowers put in loans they could ill afford just as the housing market was taking a turn for the worse.