U.S. employers added a robust 261,000 jobs in October in a bounce-back from the hurricanes that slammed the Southeast in September. The unemployment rate declined to 4.1%, the lowest in nearly 17 years, from 4.2% in September, the Labor Department says.
October’s burst of hiring mostly reflects a rebound from the hurricanes that temporarily depressed job gains in September. But it also shows that for all their fury, the storms did not knock the economy off course. Over the past three months, hiring has averaged 162,000. That is similar to the pace of hiring before the hurricanes.
Employers added just 18,000 jobs in September, as thousands of businesses were forced to close. That figure was revised higher from a previous estimate that had showed a loss of 33,000.
Even with the economy in its ninth year of recovery from the Great Recession, hiring remains solid and growth is healthy. For the first time since the downturn, the global economy is broadly improving, with all major advanced economies expanding at the same time.
