According to U.S. Labor Department figures, the number of temporary workers increased by 15,000 in October – the second straight month of growth after a 21,000 rise in September, Bloomberg reports.
Furthermore, long-term unemployment is in decline, as the number of people jobless for 27 weeks or more fell to 42.4 percent – lower than the total amount of those without work (44.6 percent) for the first time since November 2010.
This mitigated a dip in total U.S. unemployment to 9 percent from 9.1 percent. There was also a 91,000 increase in non-private payrolls and a 125,000 gain in private payrolls – those that exclude government jobs.
And while these gains are promising, sustained payrolling increases of around 150,000 per month are needed to drop unemployment down half a percentage point year-over-year, Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, explained to the news source in a separate article.
"It's painfully slow healing," Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania, told the media outlet. "The outlook really hinges on improvement in hiring to support faster consumer spending. The odds favor another round of monetary easing."