Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 214,000 in October, and the unemployment rate edged down to 5.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Employment increased in food services and drinking places, retail trade, and health care.
Household Survey Data
Both the unemployment rate (5.8 percent) and the number of unemployed persons (9.0 million) edged down in October. Since the beginning of the year, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons have declined by 0.8 percentage point and 1.2 million, respectively.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Employment Situation Summary.
Comment
Job growth has exceeded 200,000 in each of the last nine months, sufficient strength to keep the economy on a higher growth path after it expanded at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter. The relatively strong pace of job gains also signals that the slack in the labor market is being absorbed.
The Fed last month struck a fairly upbeat tune on the jobs picture as it ended its bond buying program, dropping its characterization of labor market slack as “significant” and replacing it with “gradually diminishing.”
Sturdy job gains on their own, however, will probably not be enough to convince the U.S. central bank to start raising interest rates before the second half of 2015 given a still low level of inflation.
WAGES STILL SLUGGISH
Wage growth is the missing piece of the jobs recovery and without significant increases, most economists say the Fed will be in no rush to lift benchmark lending rates that it has kept near zero since December 2008.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at U.S. payrolls rise, unemployment rate falls to 5.8 percent | Reuters.
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