Employment Rebounds In September
Kurt Brouwer October 5th, 2007
Brian Blackstone at the Wall Street Journal reports that employment went up considerably in September. In addition, last month’s abysmal report was revised upward to show a nice gain as well:
‘U.S. employment rebounded last month on robust public education and other service-sector hiring, and August payrolls were revised sharply higher, providing further evidence that while the U.S. economy may slow a bit due to the housing crunch, it is likely to skirt an outright recession.
The figures, which included an acceleration in wage growth, will likely force investors to rein in hopes for further aggressive easing by the Federal Reserve.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 110,000 in September, the Labor Department said Friday. Just as important, August was revised to an 89,000 rise from a previous estimate of a 4,000 decline. That drop had been seen by Fed watchers as a catalyst in the Fed’s surprisingly aggressive half-point federal funds reduction last month, its first in over four years…’
‘…The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage point in September to 4.7%.
Average hourly earnings increased $0.07, or 0.4%, to $17.57. That was up 4.1% from a year earlier, suggesting tight labor markets are starting to put some upward pressure on wage growth.
September payrolls topped Wall Street expectations of a 100,000 rise. A report Wednesday from Automatic Data Processing and Macroeconomic Advisers that attempts to track the government figure, as well as recent jobless claims data, had pointed to modest gains in employment.
The report on job growth is very good news that the economy has weathered the subprime lending crisis. Unemployment notched up slightly, but it is still very low by historical standards. Wage growth is also solid and this suggests the tight labor market is having an impact on wages. All in all, I’m very happy with the report and I think it indicates our economy is still chugging along at a good pace.
Update: For the full report from the Bureau of Labor Services, go here