[Senator Clay Davis]

I imagine the words "rigged!" and "fixed" will be commonplace in the Trump cult today.

America’s labor market continues to show signs of gradual strengthening, with newly released data showing that the economy added 161,000 jobs last month. Annual wage growth surged to levels not seen since before the financial crisis, while the unemployment rate dipped to 4.9 percent in October from 5.0 percent the previous month, data from the Labor Department showed.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected the U.S. to add 173,000 new jobs in October, roughly on pace with average monthly job gains over the course of the year.

The final piece of economic data to be released before the presidential election on Tuesday, the jobs report showed an economy that is steadily emerging from the shadow of the Great Recession. Analysts said Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump could seize on varying aspects of that data to make their closing arguments in the campaign.

The labor-force participation rate was 62.8 in October, roughly flat from 62.9 percent the previous month. The Labor Department also revised its estimates for job creation in August and September, with the combined total rising by 44,000.

The strongest sign for the economy was the substantial increase in hourly wages, which indicates that growth has helped absorb slack in the labor market, and that employers are competing more to hire and retain workers. Average hourly earnings of private-sector workers rose 2.8 percent in October from a year earlier, the fastest growth since 2008.

The biggest addition of jobs came in professional and business services, followed by healthcare and financial activities.

A separate report released Friday morning showed a sharp contraction in the U.S. trade deficit in September, with the trade gap in goods and services shrinking 9.9 percent from the previous month.

The employment figures, which come on the heels of an unexpectedly strong gain in U.S. economic growth in the third quarter, are likely to further lift expectations for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at its upcoming mid-December meeting.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...business_pop_b