Payrolls rose more than forecast in October, a sign businesses may be starting to gain confidence in the prospects for a faster pace of growth.
Payrolls climbed 151,000, exceeding all estimates in a Bloomberg News survey of economists and following a revised 41,000 drop the prior month that was smaller than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Private payrolls also gained more than forecast, while the jobless rate held at 9.6 per cent.
The dollar strengthened and Treasuries declined as gains in hours and earnings added to optimism that an improvement in the labour market will boost household spending. Fed policy makers this week announced a second round of large-scale asset purchases in a bid to boost growth, even as reports showed larger-than-forecast gains in retail sales and manufacturing.
“This is very optimistic news and it comes in the wake of other fairly good news,” Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Inc in Lexington, Massachusetts, said in an interview on Blooomberg Television’s In the Loop with Betty Liu.
