Is the Job Market Stabilizing?

According to the Financial Times, the job market seems to be stabilizing but at a very weak rate.

As reported, the private sector added 110,000 jobs in October. That is slightly above the estimated 100,000 jobs that many believed would be created for the month. The number of jobs created in September was also revised from 91,000 to 116,000 according to ADP. Though it rising at a snail’s pace, these figures show that there is some hope for the job market in the near future.

The US Labor Department’s figures showed that there was 2.5 percent growth in the third-quarter where earlier in the year there was a 0.4 percent growth in the first three months of the year and 1.3 percent in the second quarter. “The good news is that employment growth appears stable, but the bad news is that gains of 100,000 or slightly less a month won’t be sufficient to reduce the unemployment rate or generate a pick-up in income growth,” said Paul Ashworth, chief US economist at Capital Economics in the Financial Times.

The ADP report also showed that the majority of the growth in the job market is from the services sector, which added 114,0000 workers. On the other hand, goods-producing companies eliminated 4,000 jobs. People will have to continue to wait to see if the job market picks up steam in the last quarter of the year.

SOURCE: Financial Times