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Payrolls Rose 128,000 in October, Much Higher Than Expected

The payroll gain was much stronger than the median 85,000 estimate from Bloomberg’s survey of economists ahead of the release.

Payrolls rose by an unexpectedly strong 128,000 in October, according to the Labor Department’s jobs report released Friday. Bloomberg reported that the figure was much higher than the median 85,000 estimate from economists ahead of the release. The numbers were expected to be lower because there was a strike-driven 41,600 decline in automaker payrolls and 20,000 temporary census workers left their jobs. The jobless rate crept up to 3.6 percent from August’s half-century low, and average hourly earnings climbed by 3 percent from a year earlier, matching projections. Revisions also added 95,000 jobs for the prior two months, which brought the three-month average to 176,000, but gains still remain below 2018 levels. President Trump appeared to have inaccurately tweeted about the numbers shortly after they were released, claiming that the rise in payrolls, after being adjusted for strikes and unspecified revisions, was over 300,000.