October 6, 2017

Trying to pull out the effects of the hurricane in the latest jobs numbers is difficult. One item that is disturbing was a downward revision to the August job growth number by 51,000, going from 189,000 to 138,000. Since the reference period was the middle of the month, this was not the result of the hurricanes. The rate of job growth was already substantially below the 193,000 monthly average for 2016 and 226,000 for 2015. The downward revision for August and the decline in September pushes the pace down further, although October is virtually certain to show a sharp rebound. For more, check out the latest Jobs Byte.

This is the graph from the recent Jobs Byte. For more information, see the Jobs Byte.