Economy adds 261,000 new jobs in October, U3 unemployment down to 4.1 percent; but remember . . .

I'm not going to complain about 261,000 new jobs in a month. That's a solid number. I'd like to see better and I think that we will see better when 3.0 percent growth becomes the norm and 4.0-to-5.0 percent becomes the definition of a strong month. But for now, heck yeah, 261,000 is good news, even though it's not as much above replacement rates as you might think if you're not considering the growth in the population. The problem when you look at October growth, though, is that it follows a freakish September in which jobs actually dropped by 33,000, which owed pretty much entirely to the hurricanes. The broader trend is excellent regardless, but you have to take into account that some of October's growth is makeup from September. Had September followed the trend, we'd probably have steady but unspectactular growth in October. As it is, at least we can confirm what we suspected about September - that it was a one-time stumbled caused by the storms, and the general upward trend has quickly resumed:

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