US unemployment falls to 4.9% before election

The Labor Department said employers added 161,000 jobs in October, slightly below most economists’ estimates.

Friday’s report was the last major economic indicator to be released before Election Day.

“Professional business services continue to be one of the primary engines of growth”. The labor participation rate also changed little, the bureau says, as did the number of people working part-time jobs who would prefer to work full time.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 161,000 in October. So far in 2016, employment growth has averaged 181,000 per month, while in 2015, the increase averaged 229,000 each month.

Services set the pace for new jobs, adding 43,000 including 8,000 in computer systems design and related services, while health care grew by 31,000. While the report is expected to show continued job growth and lower unemployment, a disappointing result could bolster his claims of American decline.

The participation rate for the labor force edged just lower to end October at 62.8% compared to September’s rate of 62.9%.

There were a few bright spots, though.

The unemployment rate fell in part because many of those out of work stopped searching for jobs and were no longer counted as unemployed. “Unemployment benefits were increased sharply in response to the recession”.

In all, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.8 percent over the past year – the fastest pace since the end of the Great Recession.

The Hillary Clinton campaign announced Saturday that the candidate and its top surrogates would deploy in the campaign’s final days to MI, amid polls that have shown Republican nominee Donald Trump gaining in the state.

Despite the job gains, the economy is growing at the slowest pace of any in a recovery since World War II. The PayScale Index, which tracks the change in pay for employed USA workers, showed year-over-year wage growth of 2.3 percent for Q3 2016. But most analysts foresee only modest expansion in the October-December quarter, leaving growth at an anemic rate of about 1.8 percent for all of 2016.

“Employers have jobs they can not fill and what we’re seeing now is inevitable – an increase in wages to attract workers”, says Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at CohnReznick accounting and consulting and Labor’s former deputy assistant secretary.

While the number of new jobs fell short of expectations, average hourly earnings rose 2.8 percent, which is the strongest annual wage growth since June 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, speaking on a call with reporters through the Republican National Committee, said Trump is expanding his reach to historically Democratic states and is “now competing in states where people wrote us off months ago”.

While the household survey showed a large increase in the number of people saying they could not get to work because of bad weather, the department said it was hard to assess the impact of Hurricane Matthew on job growth last month. “That’s good news; people have confidence that they can get a job so they’re going into the work force”, said Perez.

Another battleground state where the Hispanic vote seems to be having a very significant impact in early voting results is Nevada.