The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the economy created 209,000 new private-sector jobs last month, plus another 5,000 in the public sector. That made October the ninth month of 2014 that more than 200,000 new jobs were added.
The unemployment rate, which the BLS calls U3, fell to 5.8 percent, the lowest since July 2008. U6, a BLS measure of unemployment and underemployment that includes people with no job at all, part-time workers who want full-time jobs and many "discouraged" workers, fell from 11.8 percent in September, to 11.5 percent.
Revisions lifted the number of new jobs created in August from 180,000 to 203,000 and in September from 248,000 to 256,000. By the bureau's count, there are now 1.17 million more jobs than at the pre-recession peak.
Taken as a whole, it was the best jobs report of 2014.
The BLS makes no distinction in the total between full-time and part-time jobs. Hiring of both full- and part-time workers has been in positive territory now for 61 consecutive months, a vast improvement over the 23 months from February 2008 through December 2009, when the economy frequently lost hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. But there's one big hole. On average people have taken new jobs that pay less than the ones the Great Recession cost us even when they have been hired for positions with tasks similar to what they were assigned before being laid off.
The employment-population ratio rose to 59.2 percent. The labor force participation rate rose slightly to 62.8 percent. The civilian labor force increased by 416,000, after falling by 97,000 in September.
The number of Americans who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more—fell to 2.9 million 32 percent of the total unemployed.
People counted as "part time for economic reasons" in October totaled 7.1 million. These workers want full-time jobs but have only been able to find part-time positions or have had their hours cut.
The BLS points out that "the monthly change in total nonfarm employment from the establishment survey is on the order of plus or minus 90,000." In other words, according to the bureau's statisticians, the "real" number of new jobs created in October wasn't actually 214,000, but somewhere in a band between 124,000 and 304,000.
For more details about today's jobs report, please continue reading below the winding orange unemployment queue.
By the bureau's count, 9 million people were out of work in October. This tally does not include the millions of workers who have left the workforce because they have given up on finding a job.
Among other news in the October job report:
Demographic breakdown of official (U3) seasonally adjusted jobless rate:
• African American: 10.9 percent, down from 11.0 percent
• Latino: 6.8 percent, down from 6.9 percent
• Asian (not seasonally adjusted): 5.0 percent up from 4.3 percent
• American Indian (data not collected on monthly basis)
• White: 4.8 percent, down from 5.1 percent
• Adult women (20 and older): 5.4 percent, down from 5.5 percent
• Adult Men (20 and older):5.1 percent, down from 5.3 percent
• Teenagers (16-19): 18.6 percent, up/down from 20.0 percent
Duration of unemployment:
• Less than five weeks: 2.47 million, up from 2.38 million
• 5 to 14 weeks: 2.3 million down from 2.5 million
• 15 to 26 weeks: 1.4 million (no change)
• 27 weeks and more: 2.9 million down from 2.95 million
Job gains and losses in selected categories:
• Professional services: +37,000
• Transportation and warehousing : +13,300
• Leisure & hospitality: +52,000
• Information: -4,000
• Health care: +27,200
• Retail trade: +27,100
• Construction: +12,000
• Manufacturing: +15,000
Hours and wages
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls was unchanged at 34.6 hours.
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 4 cents to $20.70.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose 3 cents $24.57.
Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in October for the previous 10 years.
October 2004: +346,000
October 2005: + 84,000
October 2006: + 2,000
October 2007: + 82,000
October 2008: - 474,000
October 2009: - 198,000
October 2010: + 241,000
October 2011: + 183,000
October 2012: + 225,000
October 2013: + 237,000
October 2014: + 214,000
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The BLS jobs report is the product of a pair of surveys, one of more than 410,000 business establishments called Current Employment Statistics, and one called the Current Population Survey, which questions 60,000 householders each month. Here is the BLS's explanation of its methodology. The establishment survey determines how many new jobs were added. It is always calculated on a seasonally adjusted basis determined by a frequently tweaked formula. The BLS report only provides a snapshot of what's happening at a single point in time.
It's important to understand that the jobs-created-last-month-numbers that it reports are not "real." Not because of a conspiracy, but because statisticians apply formulas to the raw data, estimate the number of jobs created by the "birth" and "death" of businesses, and use other filters to fine-tune the numbers. And, always good to remember, in the fine print, they tell us, with a 90 percent confidence level, that the actual number of newly created jobs reported each falls within a plus or minus 90,000 range.