WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. is becoming an engine of job creation once again, but it’s more like a four-cylinder instead of an eight-cylinder one.

The 214,000 gain in new jobs in October marked the ninth straight month in which net hiring topped 200,000. The last time that happened was in 1994.

Yet only about 40% of the new jobs created in October were in fields that pay above the average hourly U.S. wage of $24.57. That’s down from 60% in September.

The mediocre nature of many new jobs and slow wage growth are perhaps the biggest obstacle to a full-blown economic recovery.

The biggest increase in hiring in October occurred at restaurants and bars, which added a seasonally adjusted 42,000 positions. Retailers hired 27,000 workers. Temps accounted for 15,000 jobs. Transport — think package deliverers — took on 13,000 new employees. All these industries pay less than the national average.

Some of the new jobs are also unlikely to last long. Restaurants and retailers, for example, tend to beef up staff ahead of the holidays and slim down after New Year’s.

Temp jobs, on the other hand, have often been converted into full-time positions. Companies use temps sometimes as a trial for a full-time job.

Whatever the case, it’s not a good idea to give too much weight to the composition of hiring in any one month. Some 60% of the 256,000 jobs created in September, for instance, were in fields that pay above the average U.S. wage. That’s higher than normal.

There’s also been a pronounced shift in 2014 toward higher paying jobs vs. the prior year. A MarketWatch analysis shows that roughly 58% of the new jobs created this year pay above the average hourly wage, compared to less than 50% in 2013.

Still, both the composition of jobs and the trend in hourly pay bear close watching over the next few months. Both have to improve to get the U.S. economy fully back on track more than five years after the recovery started.