October 2016 employment: US adds 161,000 jobs

The Employment Situation‘ news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy added 161,000 jobs in October 2016. The unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons sat at 4.9 percent and 7.8 million respectively. In October, both the labor force participation rate, at 62.8 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.7 percent, changed little. These measures have shown little movement in recent months, although both are up over the year. Job growth has averaged 181,000 per month so far in 2016, compared with an average of 229,000 jobs per month in 2015. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for Hispanics declined to 5.7 percent in October, while the rates for adult men (4.6 percent), adult women (4.3 percent), teenagers (15.6 percent), Whites (4.3 percent), Blacks (8.6 percent), and Asians (3.4 percent) showed little change. The report revised the change in August 2016 from 167,000 jobs added to 176,000 jobs added and the change in September 2016 from 156,000 jobs added to 191,000 jobs added. With these revisions, employment gains in August and September were 44,000 less than previously reported.]]>