October Jobs Report Cites 261,000 New Jobs in U.S. Economy

The official numbers for the employment report in the United States economy has been announced, and several reports have detailed and broke down the numbers for the public.

One of the key concerns for this particular jobs report was the impact several hurricanes would have on the overall economy, especially considering the damages to places in the South, Southeast and Caribbean totaled several hundred billion dollars. Nonetheless, the jobs report included around 261,000 new jobs for the month of October. The jobless, or unemployment, rate dropped to about 4.1 percent, according to reporting by the Washington Post. That level is the lowest seen since 2000. Year-over-year wage growth dipped down to 2.4 percent, however.

Since about 2010, the economy had an overall positive growth pattern, chugging along its way up up until the tropical storms hit parts of Florida, Texas and islands in the Keys and Puerto Rico, making September a bad news month for jobs. Many people lost work in the aftermath of those storms but many have returned to work now.

But, according to a CNBC news report, 310,000 were actually expected to be added to the U.S. economy, so the news was positive but still didn’t meet expectations. There is another aspect of the report that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who, for economic reasons, stopped working full-time. That report shows this group fell from 8.3 to 7.9 percent, according to the news report. The figure was at 9.5 percent one year ago.

There was also some revisions made to reports from September and August jobs reports. An initially reported loss of 33,000 jobs was revised to around 18,000. August was revised from 169,000 to 208,000 new jobs added, according to media reports.

What about wages? Wage growth was again disappointing for analysts, off expectation by about 1 cent per hour.There was a 2.4 percent annualized gain, CNBC reported.

How about Industry? The industry that saw the biggest gains in employment was the hospitality industry. Food and drink establishments added 89,000 jobs, part of the rebound after the storm temporarily put people in this category out of work. They have returned to work. Professional services provided 50,000 jobs, manufacturing 24,000 and health care 22,000.

GDP has grown three percent in the third quarter. Economists told the New York Times not to pay as much attention to jobs figures for September or October, but rather look at the overall long-term trends in the U.S. economy for positive or negative signs. Economists have generally expected that the wage growth would have been more accelerated, according to the report from the Times.

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