Job Market Bounces Back in October – By Michael Rainey (The Fiscal Times) / Nov 5 2021
U.S. payrolls increased by 531,000 in October, the Labor Department announced Friday, as the national unemployment rate fell to 4.6%. The stronger-than-expected results are boosting confidence that the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic continues to gather steam.
“This is the kind of recovery we can get when we are not sidelined by a surge in Covid cases,” economist Nick Bunker of the job search site Indeed told CNBC. “If this is the sort of job growth we will see in the next several months, we are on a solid path.”
In addition, the numbers from previous months were revised upwards, indicating the jobs recovery may have been stronger in late summer than economists initially thought. The job growth number for August was revised to 483,000, an increase of 117,000 from the initial reading, and the number for September is now 312,000, an increase of 118,000.
Employers continue to report difficulty hiring workers, and the demand for workers amid a persistent shortage helped push wages higher, with average hourly wages for private-sector workers rising 0.4% from September to October. On an annual basis, wages are up 4.9% – an exceptionally high level that is largely being erased by exceptionally high inflation.
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