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Payroll employment up by 261,000 in October 2017

November 07, 2017

In October 2017, total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 261,000. Employment in food services and drinking places increased sharply, mostly offsetting a decline in September that largely reflected the impact of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. Employment also increased in professional and business services, manufacturing, and health care.
Over-the-month change in nonfarm payroll employment compared with prior 3-, 6-, and 12-month average change, seasonally adjusted, September 2017–October 2017
Industry Current over-the-month change(p) Prior 3-month avg. change(p) Prior 6-month avg. change(p) Prior 12-month avg. change(p)

Total nonfarm

 261,000 121,300 154,300 155,600

Mining and logging

 -2,000 2,000 4,700 4,800

Construction

 11,000 8,700 8,000 16,000

Manufacturing

 24,000 13,000 11,500 10,600

Wholesale trade

 5,700 6,200 6,000 5,100

Retail trade

 -8,300 -2,200 -4,100 -5,300

Transportation and warehousing

 8,400 13,200 11,000 9,300

Utilities

 0 -200 -300 -200

Information

 -1,000 -2,000 -3,800 -5,800

Financial activities

 5,000 11,300 12,500 12,800

Professional and business services

 50,000 37,300 42,000 45,100

Education and health services

 41,000 39,700 40,200 39,000

Leisure and hospitality

 106,000 -20,300 11,700 15,800

Other services

 12,000 4,000 8,300 5,400

Government

 9,000 10,700 6,700 3,000
Footnotes:

(p) = preliminary.

Employment in food services and drinking places rose sharply in October (+89,000), following a decrease of 98,000 in September when many workers were off payrolls due to the hurricanes.

Professional and business services added 50,000 jobs in October, about in line with its average monthly gain over the prior 12 months.

Manufacturing employment rose by 24,000 in October, with job gains in computer and electronic products (+5,000) and chemicals (+4,000). Employment in fabricated metals continued to trend up (+4,000). Manufacturing added 156,000 jobs since a recent employment low in November 2016.

Health care added 22,000 jobs in October. Employment in ambulatory health care services continued to trend up over the month (+16,000). Health care added an average of 24,000 jobs per month thus far in 2017, compared with an average gain of 32,000 per month in 2016.

Employment in other major industries, including mining, construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, and government, changed little in October.

These data are from the Current Employment Statistics program. Data for the most recent 2 months are preliminary. To learn more, see "The Employment Situation — October 2017" (HTML) (PDF). For additional charts, see Graphics for Economic News Releases: The Employment Situation.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Payroll employment up by 261,000 in October 2017 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/payroll-employment-up-by-261000-in-october-2017.htm (visited May 02, 2024).

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