(MENAFN- AFP) The US economy built on its record streak of job creation in October with the unemployment rate falling a notch to 5.8 percent, its lowest level in six years.
But the data released Friday also showed that earners are still not benefitting much from the recovery, illustrating why President Barack Obama's Democrats remain unpopular with some of the electorate.
Three days after voters delivered a thumping to Democrats in midterm elections, the Labor Department reported that the country churned out 214,000 net new jobs last month.
That kept alive a nine-month streak over the 200,000 benchmark, and a record 56 months straight of growth in the US jobs market.
"With today's report, the unemployment rate is falling as fast as at any point in the last thirty years, and the economy is on pace for its best year of job growth since the late 1990s," said Jason Furman, Obama's top economic advisor.
The data suggested even more strength than that: the numbers for the previous two months were revised upward, and showed that the economy is smoothly absorbing more entrants and returnees into the jobs market.
For the past two years the sharp fall in the overall jobless rate, from 7.8 percent in October 2012 to 5.8 percent now, had been criticized as reflecting as much the large number of dropouts from the jobs market as the new jobs generated.
But October's numbers showed the employment-to-population ratio, which plummeted in the 2008-2009 recession, crept up two-tenths of a percentage point to 59.2 percent -- still low, but the best level since August 2009.
"The sole reason why the unemployment rate had declined between January 2010 and December 2013 was the drop in the participation rate," said Harm Bandholz UniCredit.
"This pattern has changed completely since the beginning of this year... the entire decline in the jobless rate has been the result of strong employment gains."
- Wages still flat -
But the numbers were not all so buoyant, and pointed to why the Republicans swept Tuesday's congressional elections, wresting power in the Senate from the Democrats and expanding their power in the House.
Even as the economy has generated some two million new jobs so far this year, voters said they were unhappy over conditions and laid the blame on Obama and his party.
Friday's jobs data showed that wages remain depressed despite the long stretch of job creation.
Economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington pointed out that average hourly wage growth is up at an annual rate of 2.0 percent since last year, barely ahead of inflation.
And other analysts note that the new hiring is strongly weighted toward low-paid jobs. The October report showed the strongest new hiring was in the restaurant and retail industries, both low-wage sectors.
"This jobs mix issue remains an important factor in average hourly earnings growth remaining stuck," said Doug Handler, chief US economist at IHS.
"Jobs isn't really this issue. It's 'good' jobs, and improved pay for those already punching the clock."
Even so, the numbers showed that the jobs market is taking up slack and that is likely to turn into higher wages over the next year.
"With skilled-labor shortages getting only worse, and employment gains outperforming the rise in the labor force... wage gains should accelerate further in the coming months," Bandholz predicted.
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