October 2015 employment: increase in wages, professional service jobs

a release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, October saw dramatic job gains across many industries, as well as increases in private (non-farm) hourly wages. The Bureau says the unemployment rate remained “unchanged” from September’s rate of 5.1 percent, but the new report shows that the percentage of unemployed must have just edged under the previous rate, as the Department of Labor is calling the unemployment rate 5.0 percent in the most recent release. In addition, 271,000 new jobs in October, which is more than the previous per-month job average of 230,000 new jobs per month over the past year. The most jobs came to the professional and business services industry, with 78,000 new jobs in October. More than half of the jobs (46,000) were in administrative/support services, while computer systems design and architectural & engineering services also saw decent gains (10,000 and 8,000 jobs, respectively). Healthcare, retail trade, and food and drinking places also added good numbers of jobs. Twenty-seven thousand new jobs in ambulatory health care services created the bulk of healthcare’s 45,000 new positions; clothing and accessory store jobs (20,000) made up just under half of retail trade’s 44,000 jobs. Mining lost 5,000 jobs in October, and has seen 109,000 lost jobs since last December. Other sectors such as government, financial, transportation and manufacturing saw little or no change in their employment numbers from September. Finally, October saw hourly earnings increase for private employees. The average hourly rate increased by 9 cents in October, to make the average rate $25.20 per hour.]]>