by Calculated Risk on 11/04/2016 09:55:00 AM

The headline jobs number was decent. Job growth was somewhat below the consensus forecast (161,000 vs forecast of 170,000), however job growth for August and September were revised up - and the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.9%.

Earlier: October Employment Report: 161,000 Jobs, 4.9% Unemployment Rate

Job growth has averaged 181,000 per month this year.

In October, the year-over-year change was 2.36 million jobs - a solid gain.

Average Hourly Earnings

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph is based on “Average Hourly Earnings” from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) (aka "Establishment") monthly employment report. Note: There are also two quarterly sources for earnings data: 1) “Hourly Compensation,” from the BLS’s Productivity and Costs; and 2) the Employment Cost Index which includes wage/salary and benefit compensation.

The graph shows the nominal year-over-year change in "Average Hourly Earnings" for all private employees.  Nominal wage growth was at 2.8% YoY in October.  This series is noisy, however overall wage growth is trending up - especially over the last year and a half.

Note: CPI has been running around 2%, so there has been real wage growth.

Seasonal Retail Hiring

According to the BLS employment report, retailers hired seasonal workers in October at a lower pace than the last two years.

Typically retail companies start hiring for the holiday season in October, and really increase hiring in November. Here is a graph that shows the historical net retail jobs added for October, November and December by year.

This graph really shows the collapse in retail hiring in 2008. Since then seasonal hiring has increased back close to more normal levels. Note: I expect the long term trend will be down with more and more internet holiday shopping.

Retailers hired 155 thousand workers (NSA) net in October.   Note: this is NSA (Not Seasonally Adjusted).

This suggests retailers are a little cautious about the holiday season.  Note: There is a decent correlation between October seasonal retail hiring and holiday retail sales.

Employment-Population Ratio, 25 to 54 years old

Since the overall participation rate has declined recently due to cyclical (recession) and demographic (aging population, younger people staying in school) reasons, here is the employment-population ratio for the key working age group: 25 to 54 years old.

In the earlier period the participation rate for this group was trending up as women joined the labor force. Since the early '90s, the participation rate moved more sideways, with a downward drift starting around '00 - and with ups and downs related to the business cycle.

The 25 to 54 participation rate increased in October to 81.6%, and the 25 to 54 employment population ratio increased to 78.2%.

The participation rate has been trending down for this group since the late '90s, however, with more younger workers (and fewer older workers), the participation rate might move up some more.

Part Time for Economic Reasons

From the BLS report:

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (also referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was unchanged in October at 5.9 million. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

The number of persons working part time for economic reasons was essentially unchanged in October. This level suggests slack still in the labor market.

These workers are included in the alternate measure of labor underutilization (U-6) that declined to 9.5% in October. This is the lowest level for U-6 since May 2008.

Unemployed over 26 Weeks

This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more.

According to the BLS, there are 1.979 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This was up slightly from 1.974 million in September.

This is generally trending down, but is still high.

There are still signs of slack (as example, elevated level of part time workers for economic reasons and U-6), but there also signs the labor market is tightening.

Overall this was another solid report.