October
Employment and Unemployment:  The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
released a report today on employment and unemployment for October (BLS class=SpellE>pdf summary available at href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf"
title="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf">http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
).

Highlights of
the report:

style='mso-list:Ignore'>·                   
The unemployment rate declined to 4.4% in
October, down from 4.6% in September.

• The unemployment rate has declined
  for three consecutive months.


• The unemployment rate is at its
  lowest since May 2001, and is well below the recent peak of 6.3% in June
  2003.

style='font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol'>·                   
Non-farm payroll employment increased by 92,000
in October, following increases of 148,000 in September and 230,000 in August.

• Payroll job gains in August and September were
  revised up by 97,000 and 42,000 additional jobs, respectively.


• Over the past three months, payroll job gains have
  averaged a healthy 157,000 per month.


• 6.86 million new payroll
  jobs have been created in the past 38 months of consecutive job gains,
  including the preliminary estimate of the next benchmark revision to the
  payroll employment data.

style='mso-list:Ignore'>·                   
Over the year ending in October, over 2.3
million new payroll jobs have been created, including the preliminary estimate
of the next benchmark revision.

src="OCTOBER2006EMPLOYMENT.JPG" v:shapes="_x0000_i1025">

Jeffrey Wrasestyle='color:blue'>

Chief Economist
to the Vice Chairman

Joint Economic
Committee

G-07 w:st="on">Dirksen w:st="on">Senate Office
Buildingstyle='color:black'>

(202) 224-2335style='color:black'>

href="mailto:jeff_wrase@jec.senate.gov" title="mailto:jeff_wrase@jec.senate.gov">jeff_wrase@jec.senate.gov