Hiring picked up and the headline jobless rate was 4.1%. A rise in involuntary part-time work showed where the improvement fell short.
US employers added 165,000 jobs in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. The gain was more than three times the average monthly increase of 48,000 over the previous year. The unemployment rate moved from 4.2% to 4.1%, a change the bureau described as small.
Revisions strengthened the picture for late summer. August payroll growth was raised from 133,000 to 186,000, and September’s from 29,000 to 60,000. Together, the revisions added 84,000 jobs to the previous estimates. The bureau adjusts its figures as more employers report and seasonal factors are recalculated.
Business services led the gains
Professional and business services added 70,000 jobs, including gains in technical services and administrative support. Health care added 42,000, with hospitals and home health care among the sources of growth. Transportation and warehousing gained 25,000 jobs, of which couriers and messengers accounted for 17,000.
Manufacturing employment continued to trend upward, rising by 19,000. Employment changed little in several large industries, including construction, retail and leisure and hospitality. The mix matters because it shows where employers were expanding payrolls and where October offered little evidence of a change.
Some workers still wanted more hours
The share of people in the labour force was 61.9%. The number working part time for economic reasons rose by 339,000 to about 4.8 million. Those workers wanted full-time jobs but had either lost hours or been unable to find full-time work. The broader U-6 measure of labour underutilisation rose to 7.9%, according to the congressional Joint Economic Committee’s summary.
The payroll and unemployment figures come from different surveys. The first counts jobs on employers’ payrolls. The second surveys households and measures the circumstances of individual workers. Employers can add jobs in the same month that more households report inadequate hours.
Pay and hours offer a mixed signal
Average hourly earnings for private nonfarm employees reached $38.00, up 0.4% from September and 3.1% from a year earlier. The average workweek held at 34.4 hours. Reuters reported that the stronger payroll figures kept a December Federal Reserve rate increase in view, an assessment that remains contingent on incoming data and policy deliberations.
The next employment report is scheduled for 4 December. The revisions to August and September show how much the picture can change as employers submit more data. For households that reported working fewer hours than they wanted, the test is whether the hiring gains turn into more full-time work.
Sources
Bureau of Labor Statistics — October employment report
