The Employment Situation Report for October came in better than expected, pretty much across the board, and included some hefty revisions.
Nonfarm payrolls far exceeded expectations, with 531,000 new jobs in October against estimates for 400,000. This followed September’s upwardly revised report of 312,000 which originally signaled 194,000 jobs. Further, August’s report was upwardly revised as well, increasing to 483,000 jobs from 366,000 jobs.
Meanwhile, Nonfarm Private Payrolls added 604,000 jobs in October. This was a steep increase compared to estimates for 390,000 jobs and was a strong step from September’s upwardly revised growth of 365,000 jobs (previously 317,000 jobs).
The unemployment rate fell more than expected to 4.6% from September’s rate of 4.8%. The average workweek slightly decreased from 34.8 in September to 34.7 in October. Lastly, average hourly earnings grew in line with expectations, rising 0.4% following September’s steeper rise of 0.6%.
Hiring
Hiring clearly picked up in October, as the threat of the Delta variant lessened. While this was a massive highlight for the report, it also came with some caveats. The number of individuals who are working part-time for economic reasons - meaning they are seeking full-time employment but cannot find it - was little changed and remains high at 4.4 million people.
Meanwhile, the number of people that are currently not in the labor force was 6.0 million, which is 968,000 higher than the February 2020 report. This group isn’t counted in the unemployment rate because they have not searched for a job in the past four weeks or because they had to decline a job.
Unemployment
The unemployment rate for adult men decreased to 4.3% from 4.7% in October, while the unemployment rate for adult women increased slightly to 4.4% (previously 4.2%). There was little change reported among the majority of demographics, however, adult white men had the most favorable change declining to 3.6% from 4.2%, while the unemployment rate for black men ticked higher to 8.3% from 8.0%.
Work-from-home
The number of people currently working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic decreased this month to 11.6% from 13.2%.
