Now we have the news that October saw the creation of 171,000 net new jobs in the U.S., with the unemployment rate moving up only from 7.8% to 7.9%, with the first digit being the key (i.e., under 8).

This report offers the final piece of evidence to buttress the President's winning narrative on the economy:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden took office as the American economy was on the brink of depression. We were in freefall. Thanks to President Obama's policies, we had returned to positive job growth barely a year into his administration, and have created well over 5 million private sector jobs since the summer of 2010. The unemployment rate has come down more than 2 full points, and the economy, while still on the mend, is finally moving in the right direction.

Mitt Romney would return us to the same exact Republican policies that got us into the financial crash of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed. Why in the world would we do that? Barack Obama has shown that he knows how to get the American economy moving, and get Americans back to work. We need four more years of this President in order to keep moving forward.

Highlights from the BLS report:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 171,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 7.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in professional and business services, health care, and retail trade. The civilian labor force rose by 578,000 to 155.6 million in October, and the labor

force participation rate edged up to 63.8 percent. Total employment rose by 410,000

over the month. The employment-population ratio was essentially unchanged at 58.8

percent, following an increase of 0.4 percentage point in September. (See table A-1.) The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to

as involuntary part-time workers) fell by 269,000 to 8.3 million in October, partially

offsetting an increase of 582,000 in September. These individuals were working part

time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a

full-time job.

There are some important things to highlight there. Labor force participation went up. Total employment went up. The number of part-time employees dropped. These are, as I understand them, numbers that show that this is good, strong job growth. More people are returning to the labor market, and more of the jobs they are finding are full-time, rather than part-time. This is a good report.

From Dartagnan in the comments, here is a bit more analysis from Reuters:



(Reuters) - U.S. employers stepped up hiring in October and the jobless rate ticked higher as more workers restarted job hunts, a hopeful sign for a lackluster economy that has dragged on President Barack Obama's reelection chances. (snip) The jobless rate edged a tenth of a point higher to 7.9 percent, but that was due to a surge of workers back into the workforce. Only people who have recently looked for a job can count as unemployed. (snip) While the rise in the jobless rate was expected, the increase in payrolls beat even the most optimistic forecast in a Reuters poll.

Reuters also noted that the job creation numbers for August and September were revised upward by an additional 84,000. That means today's report shows a quarter of a million new jobs, in a sense.

The media narrative has been running in Obama's direction at least since the second presidential debate, and even more so this week with his strong performance (figuratively endorsed by Republican Chris Christie and literally endorsed by independent Michael Bloomberg) on Hurricane Sandy. These strong job numbers allow that narrative to continue flowing in the President's direction. There are still four more days until the election, but every good day for Barack Obama makes it that much harder for Mitt Romney to defeat him.

This is a really good report, and it's what we needed heading into the final stretch. But we have keep up our work, and re-elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden. GOTV!