Overall
The U.S. economy created 166,000 jobs in October, exhibiting unexpected strength. In fact, this was the most robust job growth rate since May of this year and was more than double the 80,000 expected by a consensus of economists. On the downside, this payroll report may make a FED interest rate cut in December, less likely.
Jobs continued to be lost in the manufacturing and construction sectors. However the slowdown in construction jobs moderated in October only dropping by 5,000 with increased hiring in nonresidential construction offsetting continued weakness in residential.
Securities Industry
The job situation in the broad sector of financial activities was steady with job loss in the area of mortgage lending and related activities moderating and being somewhat offset by gains in other areas, including the Securities Industry.
We managed to remain steady at historically high employment levels of 853,900 employees, with a little over 5,000 net new jobs being created for the month; albeit with downward revisions to previous months. The year-to-date employment rate through the first 10 months, shows a net gain of over 25,000 jobs for an anticipated annualized growth rate fractionally above 3% - leading us to project the hiring year of 2007 may turn out to be a bit slower than last years 3.93% rate.
