Nonetheless, the report isn’t universally strong, with 33k downward revisions to the previous two months. The breakdown shows that it is the three usual suspects that contributed virtually all the jobs: leisure & hospitality +47k, government +22k and private education & healthcare services +59k. Remember, the federal government workers who accepted deals to leave won’t drop off until the October report, which will now be combined with the November report and released on 16 December.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3% and wage growth rose only 0.2% month-on-month. The unemployment rate comes from a separate survey of households. This showed a 470,000 increase in the labour force, but only 251,000 found jobs, so unemployment grew by 219,000. This survey tends to be more volatile than the establishment survey of firms that generates the non-farm payrolls number.