October's employment figure, which came out this morning from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was surprisingly strong, at 204,000 new jobs added. That slightly better than the average of 190,000 for the previous 12 months, despite the effects of the government shutdown at the beginning of the month. The private-sector increase of 212,000 jobs was the highest that number has been since February. The federal government shed 12,000 jobs in October.
The headline unemployment figure actually ticked up a notch, to 7.3 percent, but that appears to be temporary. That figure includes furloughed federal workers, who were classified as unemployed for purposes of the BLS's household survey.
In other good news, the government also released its first estimate of third quarter GDP yesterday. That figure came in at 2.8 percent, which was a notch up from the second quarter's growth rate of 2.5 percent, and the best figure we've seen in a year.
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