Obama’s re-election gets boost as US adds 171,000 jobs in October

The US economy added 171,000 jobs in October as the country’s unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9 percent, giving a boost to President Barack Obama’s re-election bid.

Companies hired nearly 171,000 workers, better than the 125,000 expected, according to the widely-anticipated monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labour. The number of Americans hired in August and September was revised up by 84,000, the Telegraph reports.

According to the report, Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics, said that “the rate of job growth still isn’t great but, it sustained, it should be enough to bring the unemployment rate gradually lower over time”. Nearly 36,000 jobs were created in retail, the construction industry created nearly 17,000 and manufacturers hired 13,000 during the month.

However, average hourly earnings slipped a cent to 23.58 dollars, underlying the lack of wage inflation in the economy. With just four days left for the presidential election, Obama will argue the better-than-expected job growth is evidence that the world’s largest economy is climbing out of the recession he inherited in 2009, the report said.

According to the report, despite the pick up in the rate of job creation over the last three months, economists said it is unlikely to deflect the Federal Reserves from its policy of quantitative easing and pledge to keep rates low until 2015.