The Employment Situation: October 1997 — 1997-11-07

Nonfarm payroll employment rose, and the unemployment rate declined to 4.7 percent in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The number of payroll jobs increased by 284,000; although gains occurred in many industries, there was a particularly large increase in manufacturing. Both the number of unemployed persons and the unemployment rate fell in October. The number of persons who were unemployed, at 6.5 million, was 285,000 below September�s level, and the unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to 4.7 percent. From April through September, the rate had ranged from 4.8 to 5.0 percent. In October, the unemployment rate for adult women declined from 4.4 to 4.0 percent. The rates for adult men (4.1 percent), teenagers (15.3 percent), whites (4.1 percent), blacks (9.5 percent), and Hispanics (8.0 percent) showed little or no movement over the month. (See tables A-1 and A-2.) Total employment was about unchanged in October at 129.9 million.