Nov. 5, 2004
Fox News
WASHINGTON — The number of new jobs soared at the sharpest rate in seven months in October, the government reported on Friday, helped by a surge in construction activity as hurricane-racked areas in the Southeast were rebuilt.
A surprisingly strong 337,000 jobs were added to payrolls last month — twice the 169,000-job growth that Wall Street economists had forecast. However, the unemployment rate edged up to 5.5 percent from 5.4 percent in September as more people joined the search for employment, the Labor Department said.
New hiring in October was more than twice as strong as the upwardly revised 139,000 jobs that were created in September. The data pointing to revival in the labor market comes days before Federal Reserve policy-makers, meeting Wednesday, are expected to nudge official short-term interest rates up for a fourth time this year, by a quarter percentage point, to lift the federal funds rate to 2 percent.
Kathleen Utgoff, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, noted that a 71,000-addition in construction jobs — the biggest since March 2000 — "reflected rebuilding and cleanup activity in the Southeast following the four hurricanes that struck the U.S. in August and September."
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