I know that it’s not Halloween anymore, but I can’t tell if this BLS report is a trick or a treat…
In my defense, I know that the title of this post is cheesy. But it’s kind of clever at the same time, so I’m leaving it up there.
Continuing on with the topic at hand, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with our country’s job market, or our economy for that matter, but we generated pretty impressive payroll growth last month. According to the BLS employment report released this morning, 166,000 new jobs were created in October.
Now we all know that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics likes to play tricks on us. Remember in September when they told us that the country had lost 4,000 jobs? That was pretty funny. Ok…maybe not. But at least we were preparing for the worst.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to rejoice over today’s employment situation report and the fact that we might have gained more than 150,000 jobs in October. But I’m a realist, or maybe a pessimist. Either way, I can’t devote valuable time to picking apart numbers that I think might be revised within a few days. So if it happens that by next month the 166,000 figure is still standing, I’ll make my post on the BLS report for November extra long and insightful.
That being said, here are some of the basic findings from the October report:
The unemployment rate for the country is holding steady at 4.7 percent, and total employment has topped out at 146.0 million citizens.
The health care industry created 34,000 jobs last month, food services and drinking places added 37,000, and professional and business services increased by 65,000 positions. (I will admit that the last number is unusual and worth a second look/some minimal research on a Friday afternoon.)
The manufacturing sector cut 21,000 jobs in October and construction lost 5,000, which is a big improvement over previous months.
Also, the average workweek remained unchanged at 33.8 hours, the average hourly earnings of workers increased by three cents to $17.58, and the average weekly income in the U.S. rose 0.2 percent to $594.20.
So there you have it, the bare essentials from October’s employment situation report. If the payroll numbers make it through to next month without being dramatically revised, I’ll eat my words (and probably look pretty foolish at the same time). But I suppose it would mean good things for our economy, and for that reason, I’ll cross my fingers and hope that they stay the same.