The unemployment rate stayed almost the same at 5 percent in the month of October, with the economy adding 217,000 jobs. This showed a rebound from slow months in August and September.
The data was released by the Labor Department today. The stats showed that the number of unemployed persons also stayed nearly the same with 7.9 million people. Still, over the past year, the unemployment rate has fallen by 0.7 percent.
Most of the job growth came in the professional and business services like health care, leisure and hospitality sector. However, as the New York Times notes, there were still job losses in the manufacturing sector, along with mining and logging, where 100,000 jobs have been lost this year.
Since the holidays are around the corner, retail saw a large increase in hiring, jumping by 44,000. Health care saw 45,000 jobs added and there were 42,000 jobs added in the food services sector.
According to ABC News, the Federal Reserve is meeting next month and it’s likely that interest rates will be raised with over 150,000 jobs added this month. Still, there is one more jobs report coming out before then to consider.