Just How Good Is the October Job Market? Here’s How It Compares

U.S. employers added 250,000 jobs, the unemployment rate held steady at 3.7% and hourly wages posted their strongest growth since 2009 in October.

Wage growth climbed 3.1% from a year ago, on an hourly basis, topping 3% for the first time since the recession. On a weekly basis, wages jumped an even stronger 3.4%.

The number of jobs grew by 1.7% over the past year. That pace of gains is a slight acceleration from a year ago but below the postrecession highs seen in 2015.

Broader measures of unemployment, such as those that include discouraged workers, and part-time workers who can’t find full-time work, have also continued to trend downward.

The share of Americans participating in the labor force has been little changed for the past five years, as job gains have been partially offset by the ongoing retirement of the baby boomer generation.

Among people ages 25 to 54, when decisions about school or retirement are less likely to influence whether people are in the work force, 82.3% are participating in the labor force and 79.7% have jobs. Both figures are now at their highest levels since the recession and its immediate aftermath.

Professional services and health care have continued to be the biggest drivers of job growth, but the construction and manufacturing industries have both posted solid gains over the past year.

The median spell of unemployment lasts 9.4 weeks, a relatively long period of time given how healthy the labor market appears otherwise. For those who do lose a job, many are not finding a new job quickly.

The unemployment rate for workers with high school education or less climbed in October. Workers without a high school degree face triple the unemployment rate of those who finished college.

Jobless rates have come down for workers of all races and genders, though persistent gaps remain between different groups.

The economy has added 2.1 million jobs so far in 2018, putting it on course to be the third best year for job growth since the recession. This year is 89,000 jobs behind the pace of 2015 and 322,000 jobs behind the pace of 2014.

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from Real Time Economics https://ift.tt/2Qg7U7w