Strong September jobs report

Contrary to previous months this year, the September jobs report was unequivocally strong. While most analysts tend to focus only on the payroll job number (which rose a higher than expected 103,000), other elements were in fact even stronger.

-First of all, the payroll number for previous months were upwardly revised by a total of 99,000.

-Secondly, like the previous month, but unlike the months before that, the household survey number was even stronger, showing a gain of 398,000. As a result, the employment to population ratio rose to 58.3% from 58.2%.

-Thirdly, average hourly earnings rose 0.2% and average weekly earnings rose 0.5% in nominal terms, though that just reflects a reversal of the previous months drop in both cases, meaning that in real terms September real wages are likely lower than in July.

This report clearly contradicts the "double dip" scenario.

BTW, the United States' northern neighbor Canada had even stronger job growth in September.