Hillarie Aiello dishes up food at Woodman's in Essex. Nationwide, employers added twice as many jobs in October as were expected. The national unemployment held steady at 4.7 percent.
(Lisa Poole/Associated Press)
Employment gains double forecast
Newly created jobs in October keep jobless rate at 4.7%
Hillarie Aiello dishes up food at Woodman's in Essex. Nationwide, employers added twice as many jobs in October as were expected. The national unemployment held steady at 4.7 percent.
(Lisa Poole/Associated Press)
WASHINGTON - Employers added twice as many new jobs to their ranks than expected in October, an encouraging sign that the nation's employment climate is not cracking under the stress of a deepening housing slump.
The Labor Department reported yesterday that the nation's payrolls grew by a net 166,000, the most in five months. The unemployment rate didn't budge at 4.7 percent, a figure considered low by historical standards.
Job gains were logged at schools, hospitals, bars and restaurants, hotels and motels, temporary-help firms, legal services, accounting and bookkeeping companies, and the government.
Those increases more than offset losses at factories and construction and mortgage companies - casualties of the housing and credit markets. Retailers and trucking companies also lost jobs.
"There is no question that employers are more cautious as they look forward. But I think many of them are not seeing it in their actual operations. They need workers and they are hiring," said John Challenger, president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a placement firm.
The latest report on employment conditions nationwide was better than economists anticipated. Economists were expecting payrolls in October to grow by a much smaller 80,000.
"Businesses have not clammed up on the hiring scene as some feared," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "The wheels aren't coming off the economy."
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials, down most of the session reflecting investors' skittishness, managed a late turnaround, gaining 27.23 points to close at 13,595.10. On Thursday, the Dow plunged 362 points, underscoring the fragile state of financial markets.
President Bush pointed to fresh employment figures as evidence his economic policies work. "This is now our 50th consecutive month of uninterrupted job growth, the longest in the nation's history," he said.
Even so, the trend this year has been toward softer job growth. Wage growth, meanwhile, moderated a bit last month.
Average hourly earnings rose to $17.58 in October, a 0.2 percent increase. That was down slightly from a 0.3 percent rise in September. Over the past 12 months, wages were up 3.8 percent.
Still, economists said the personal income gains should be sufficient to support consumer spending and keep the economic expansion - which began in late 2001 - intact.
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