October 2011 Employment Report

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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) non-farm payroll employment continued to trend up in October (+80,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.0 percent. Employment in the private sector rose (+104,000), with modest job growth continuing in professional and businesses services, leisure and hospitality, health care, and mining. Government employment continued to trend down (-24,000), especially at the state level.
 

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Employment is converging with the previous peak at a slower pace than any prior recession going back to 1973.
 

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Part-time employment fell by 374,000 jobs while full-time employment increased by 421,000. The trend for part-time employment appears to be stable to declining slightly; the full-time trend is solidly, although modestly, higher if viewed from January 2010.
 

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The civilian labor force participation rate remained at 64.2 percent. The annual percentage increase in average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees dropped to 1.6 percent, nearly on par with the historical low set back in February 2004. With the consumer price index for urban consumers rising at a 3.9 percent annual pace, wages are falling in real terms (i.e., wage increases are not keeping up with price inflation).

In summary, then, although this employment report was not awful, neither does it portend strong economic growth.