The United States economy added 151,000 jobs in October, a welcome change after four months of job losses but still not enough to make a dent in unemployment. þþPrivate companies have been expanding their payrolls throughout 2010, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. Private job growth had been overwhelmed by the elimination of temporary decennial Census jobs and layoffs by state and local government during the summer and early fall — until October. þþOn many levels, the October report was much stronger than expected. Forecasters had been expecting a gain of only 60,000 jobs. The report also revised the numbers for August and September, showing 110,000 fewer jobs losses than previously estimated. Hourly wages were slightly higher, too. þþ“The big picture from this report and some of the others recently all points to a pickup in growth in the beginning of the fourth quarter,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics. “The notion that the economy might be double-dipping can now be safely tossed out.” þþStill, the economy has a long way to go before the world brightens for many Americans. Nearly 15 million people are out of work and actively looking, and the unemployment rate, which remained steady at 9.6 percent, has been relatively flat since May. þþA broader measure of unemployment, which includes people who are working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs and people who have given up looking for work, ticked down slightly to 17 percent from 17.1 percent in September. þþComing just days after voters handed his party a “shellacking” at least in part out of frustration with the economy, President Obama seized on the report as a glimmer of hope in a bleak week. He called it “encouraging news” and pointed out twice that it meant the private sector had added more than 1 million jobs since the beginning of the year, although he acknowledged “that’s not good enough.” þþ“The fact is an encouraging jobs report doesn’t make a difference if you’re still one of the millions of people who are looking for work,” he told reporters before departing for a 10-day trip to Asia. “And I won’t be satisfied until everybody who is looking for a job can find one.” þþHe reached out to Republicans who have just won control of the House and picked up six seats in the Senate, pledging to work together on job growth. “I am open to any idea, any proposal, any way we can get the economy growing faster so that people who need work can find it faster,” he said, ticking off ideas like more infrastructure spending and tax breaks for businesses. þþCompanies added 159,000 jobs last month, after a gain of 107,000 jobs in September. Governments cut 8,000 jobs after losses of 148,000 positions in September. The economy last added jobs in May, when more than 400,000 workers were hired by the federal government to help with the Census. þþAmong the private industries with the strongest growth were education and health services, which added 53,000 jobs; retail, which added 28,000; and temporary help services, which expanded by 34,900 jobs. Another encouraging statistic was the lengthening private sector workweek, which rose by one-tenth of an hour, to 34.3 hours. Like the hiring of temp workers, an expanding workweek typically is seen as a harbinger of more permanent hiring. þþBesides, the combination of longer hours and slightly higher hourly wages may help propel consumer spending, which could in turn lead retailers to do more hiring. þþ“For the fourth quarter, things may not be quite blockbuster, but it does look like we’re picking up a little momentum as we’re going into the holiday season,” Nigel Gault, chief United States economist at IHS Global Insight, said. “That’s certainly good news.” þþCiting concerns about “disappointingly slow” growth, the Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday that it would engage in more aggressive monetary policy to try and grease the wheels of growth. The Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, has hinted — and other economists have more openly advocated — that more active help from Capitol Hill on the jobs and output front would also be welcome. þþ
Source: NY Times
