by Calculated Risk on 11/06/2015 08:30:00 AM

From the BLS:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 271,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and construction.
...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised from +136,000 to +153,000, and the change for September was revised from +142,000 to +137,000. With these revisions, employment gains in August and September combined were 12,000 more than previously reported.
...
In October, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 9 cents to $25.20, following little change in September (+1 cent). Hourly earnings have risen by 2.5 percent over the year.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows the monthly change in payroll jobs, ex-Census (meaning the impact of the decennial Census temporary hires and layoffs is removed - mostly in 2010 - to show the underlying payroll changes).
Total payrolls increased by 271 thousand in October (private payrolls increased 268 thousand).

Payrolls for August and September were revised up by a combined 12 thousand.

This graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.

In October, the year-over-year change was 2.81 million jobs.

That is a solid year-over-year gain.


The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.

The Labor Force Participation Rate was unchanged in October at 62.4%. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.   A large portion of the recent decline in the participation rate is due to demographics.

The Employment-Population ratio increased to 59.3% (black line).

I'll post the 25 to 54 age group employment-population ratio graph later.

The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate declined in October to 5.0%.

This was well above expectations of 190,000 jobs, and revisions were up, and there was a pick up in wage growth ... a strong report.

I'll have much more later ...