Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 151,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.6%, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Since December 2009, nonfarm payroll employment has risen by 874,000.

The BLS also increased previous estimates by 110,000 jobs in adjustments to August and September. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised from -57,000 to -1,000, and the change for September was revised from -95,000 to -41,000.

Adding 151,000 jobs last month (especially with a revision that adds 110,000to our previous estimates) is good news but not great news. We really need to be adding at least 250,000 and hopefully 400,000 for many months in a row. Both to keep up with population growth and restore some of the 8 million job losses from the credit crisis recession. The fears of a depression that some had a few years ago though are decreasing as we provide slow but real growth. However those gains are far from certain to continue, but overall things look much better than than did 2 years ago.

In November of 2008 the economy lost over 500,000 Jobs and in October 2009 the unemployment Rate Reached 10.2%.

The number of unemployed persons, at 14.8 million, was little changed in October. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.7%), adult women (8.1%), teenagers (27.1%). The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was about unchanged over the month at 6.2 million.

Both the civilian labor force participation rate, at 64.5 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 58.3 percent, edged down over the month.

About 2.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in October, up from 2.4 million a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.2 million discouraged workers in October, an increase of 411,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.4 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 151,000 in October, reflecting job gains in mining and a number of service-providing industries. Private-sector payroll employment rose by 159,000 over the
month; since December 2009, employment in the private sector has risen by 1.1 million.

Within professional and business services, employment in temporary help services continued to increase in October, with a gain of 35,000. Temporary help services has added 451,000 jobs since a recent low in September 2009. Employment in computer systems design and related services increased by 8,000 in October and has risen by 53,000 since a recent low in June 2009.

Health care continued to add jobs in October (+24,000). The gain was in line with the average increase over the prior 12 months (+20,000). Mining employment continued to trend up (+8,000) over the month. Since a recent low in October 2009, mining has added 88,000 jobs. Employment in manufacturing changed little in October (-7,000) and, on net, has essentially been flat since May. The industry had added 134,000 jobs during the first 5 months of this year.

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.1 hour in October to 34.3 hours. The manufacturing workweek for all employees also increased by 0.1 hour, to 40.3 hours, while factory overtime was unchanged at 3.0 hours. The average work-week for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.1 hour to 33.6 hours in October.

In October, average hourly earnings of all employees on private non-farm payrolls increased by 5 cents to $22.73. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.7 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees
rose by 7 cents to $19.17.

Related: USA Unemployment Rate at 9.6% (Sept 2010) – What Do Unemployment Stats Mean? – Global Manufacturing Employment Data from 1979 to 2007

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