[lbo-talk] employment

[Doug Henwood]

Pretty good U.S. employment report this morning - up 126,000 jobs, 
and September's iniitally reported gain of 57,000 was revised up to 
125,000. This is about half the pace we'd see in a "normal" recovery, 
but it's still a lot better than the minus signs that dominated the 
first half of the year. Manufacturing is still shrinking, off 24,000, 
but private services were up 143,000. The unemployment rate fell from 
6.1% to 6.0%, and it would have fallen further, had lots of people 
not re-entered the labor market. One bit of bad news: real hourly 
earnings growth, which had been solidly positive through the 
recession, had been falling, and hit zero.

Still, pretty good numbers. Prepare yourself for a lot of Republican swagger.