October was another strong month for the US labor market even as recession fears for next year continue.
The country added 261,000 payrolls in October according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecasted payrolls to rise by 200,000.
The preliminary estimate for October fell below September's gain, which was revised from 263,000 to 315,000. The final reading for August was revised from 315,000 to 292,000.
"In October, notable job gains occurred in health care, professional and technical services, and manufacturing," BLS wrote in Friday's news release.
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Education and health services experienced a payroll gain of 79,000 in October. Within this industry, health care saw payrolls rise by about 53,000. Professional and business services saw an increase of 39,000. Leisure and hospitality saw an increase of 35,000, as employment in this industry still falls below its pre-pandemic level.
The unemployment rate was 3.7% in October, up from September's 3.5% rate.That exceeds the 3.6% that economists surveyed by Bloomberg expected.
Average hourly earnings increased by $0.12 to $32.58. With a month-over-month increase of 0.4%, that narrowly beat the median forecast of 0.3%.
Although Americans and businesses may be worried about the likelihood of a recession, the labor market is still strong, which can be beneficial amid these fears. According to David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, there are some ways the US can avoid a recession.
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"We have some antidotes to a recession, which are really important here, and that's what's kind of keeping this economy growing," Kelly told Insider in a recent interview after the recent GDP report and before this week's employment situation report.
Kelly added, "it's very hard to tumble into a recession whenever we start to hire people."
There are also a high number of job openings in the US still. After dropping in August, US job openings rose to 10.7 million in September and there were about 1.9 job openings per unemployed person that month.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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