Strong Payroll Bounce +271,000; December Rate Hike Likely

Initial Reaction

Following last month’s downside shock, comes this month’s big surprise to the upside. The Bloomberg Consensus estimate was 190,000 jobs and the headline total was 271,000. The unemployment rate declined to 5.0%, the lowest since April 2008. A rate hike in December is likely.

BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance

Nonfarm Payroll: +271,000 – Establishment Survey

Employment: +320,000 – Household Survey

Unemployment: -7,000 – Household Survey

Involuntary Part-Time Work: -235,000 – Household Survey

Voluntary Part-Time Work: +198,000 – Household Survey

Baseline Unemployment Rate: -0.1 at 5.0% – Household Survey

U-6 unemployment: -0.2 to 9.8% – Household Survey

Civilian Non-institutional Population: +216,000

Civilian Labor Force: +313,000 – Household Survey

Not in Labor Force: -97,000 – Household Survey

Participation Rate: Unchanged at 62.4 – Household Survey (a 40-year low)

October 2015 Employment Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Current Employment Report.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 271,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.0 percent. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and construction.

Unemployment Rate – Seasonally Adjusted

Nonfarm Employment

Nonfarm Employment Change from Previous Month by Job Type

Hours and Wages

of all private employees was unchanged at 34.5 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees was unchanged at 33.4 hours.

of private workers rose $0.09 to $21.18. Average hourly earnings of private service-providing employees rose $0.08 to $20.98.

For discussion of income distribution, please see

Birth Death Model

Starting January 2014, I dropped the

charts from this report. For those who follow the numbers, I retain this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid. Should anything interesting arise in the Birth/Death numbers, I will add the charts back.