Unemployment dips to 9% as employers add 80,000 jobs

A fourth straight month of modest hiring in October led to the first decline in the U.S. unemployment rate since July—a 0.1% drop to 9%—the Labor Department reported this morning. Although hiring actually slowed a bit in October, the government says job growth was much stronger in August and September than originally reported. Regardless, today’s report suggests President Barack Obama will likely face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any postwar president as he campaigns for re-election in 2012. The Labor Department says the economy added 80,000 jobs in October. It was the fewest in four months and far below September’s revised total of 158,000. The government revised August and September’s data to show 102,000 more jobs added than originally reported. Even so, October’s modest job growth is barely enough to keep pace with population growth—about twice as many jobs are needed to lower the unemployment rate. The economy generated an average of 130,000 jobs per month in the third quarter, up from 97,000 in the preceding three months. Still, that’s down from 166,000 each month in the first quarter of the year. The biggest revision of numbers by the government today is for August. Initially, it reported employers added zero net jobs that month; the finding has since been revised twice to show 104,000 jobs added.