Yet another month of good job and wage growth for October.

On the eve of midterms, we got one last jobs report in for October today. And things continued to look very good in the labor market.

JUST IN: The US economy added 261,000 jobs in October – that’s well above expectations and indicates the economy is not in a recession.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.7%.

Wages are up 4.7% in the past year, which is a clear slowdown from earlier this year. #jobs

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) November 4, 2022

But 4.7% wage growth (and a 0.4% increase in October) still isn't bad, especially as wages have continued to climb after inflation leveled off after June. We've now seen 8 straight months of average hourly wages going up 0.3% or more, with the biggest gains continuing to be at the lower parts of the wage scale. But we also aren't seeing wages go up by so much that it would trigger a severe wage-price spiral.

Leisure and hospitality led the way with huge wage growth last year. It's slowed markedly since then, but we've seen a bit of an uptick in recent months. Not sure I'd read too much into the short-term moves here, but does suggest wage pressures in the sector remain strong. pic.twitter.com/PlR9YMbZR9

— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) November 4, 2022

In looking at sectors and job growth, health care has had a remarkable comeback from the huge deficits that hit in the first year post-COVID. The sector has now gained over 500,000 jobs in the last 12 months, and has more jobs in it now than it did before the pandemic.

Hiring still looks strong in many sectors, but not all

Healthcare +53,000
Professional services +43,000
Manufacturing +32,000
Hotels +20,000
Social services +19,000
K-12 education +13,500
Trucking +13,200
Retail +7,200
Restaurants +6,000
Construction +100
Warehousing -20,000

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) November 4, 2022

That 32,000 job gain in manufacturing is also notable, especially in contrast to the flat growth in the construction sector. We now have larger job gains in the manufacturing sector since the start of the pandemic than we do in construction, despite the fact that manufacturing had a much larger COVID-era deficit when Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Despite the Fed's best attempts, this is still a pretty darn good jobs market. But as a UW-Madison economics professor points out, our media stays fixated on an INFLATION that has been cooling off for the last 4 months, to the point that the reality of our great jobs market has become largely ignored.

If Trump were in office, this would be daily front page news, w/ the papers of record proclaiming him FDR v2.0 for saving the country from another Great Depression. But it’s Biden, so enjoy this latest feature w/ Larry Summers on THE INFLATION & the 2012 equivalent gas prices. https://t.co/6XOkn5DrkD pic.twitter.com/sHqSreFM80

— Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov) November 4, 2022

LIBERAL MEDIA MY ASS!!!