Dive Brief:
- The U.S. added 271,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate is 5% according to the hiring and unemployment report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment was 5.1% in September.
- The measure of part-time workers and discouraged Americans who quit job searches, as well as the unemployed — fell to 9.8% from 10%, reports USA TODAY.
- Hiring is particularly strong for white collar employers. Ernst & Young, as an example, has been on a run as of late, planning to hire 17,000 new employees in the U.S. alone — 10,000 of them straight out of college, the Times said. Most available positions require at least a bachelor's degree, highlighting the increased need for employees with specialized skills in the marketplace.
Insight:
The report came as a surprise, especially considering the slack that occurred in August and September. Both months fell far below 150,000 and "far short" of what Wall Street expected, the Times said.
Manufacturing, which lost more than 25,000 jobs in the last several months, continues to be weak. The strength of hiring had been coming from health care, professional services,and leisure and hospitality with strong showings of 30,000 jobs in each sector in September.
October's growth was the 61st consecutive month — the longest stretch going back to 1939 — and the 68th consecutive month with private-sector job growth, the longest on record, according to MSNBC.
Fed chairwoman Janet L. Yellen said this week on Capitol Hill that an inflation increase in December is possible if the economy continued to perform well. The slack that built up after the recession has changed traditional calculations of how far unemployment can fall before the market tightens and inflation rises, the Times reported.
