Job Market, Payrolls Up in October

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Despite ongoing concerns, the labor sector is going fairly strong.

According to a new report released by the United States Department of Labor on Friday, nonfarm payrolls and hiring rates did fairly well this past October. This is in spite of ongoing concerns regarding inflation, interest rates, and supply chain issues.

According to the report, payrolls rose by 261,000, beating out the Dow estimate, while average hourly wages are up by 4.7% compared to this time last year. While inflation concerns are still making pay rates a hot button issue, the rate of pay is at least just high enough to stave off a disaster scenario.

“There has been some signs of cooling. Bur are seeing a pretty strong labor market,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told CNBC. “We did see a substantial increase in jobs. But there’s been a slowdown in the rate of increase. You would expect that as we get closer to full employment.”

Recently, the sectors that have been seeing the most growth are healthcare and leisure. New medical jobs, both technical and customer facing, grew by 53,000 positions. Positions in businesses like hotels and restaurants are also up by around 35,000 jobs, though this isn’t quite the same rate of growth that we saw last year. Surprisingly, one sector that has cooled in job gains is retail, in spite of the looming holiday shopping season.

“Job gains were fairly widespread, and overall wage gains are still too high,” said Marvin Loh, senior global macro strategist at State Street. “So, steady as she goes from a Fed perspective, but incrementally, there’s reason to have a little hope that we’re starting to see some of the froth come out of the [jobs] market.”

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