Several interesting items came out of the report:

- Since May 2005, the unemployment rate has been relatively stable, ranging from a low of 4.9 to a high of 5.1 percent. While many would consider those numbers to be healthy given the much higher rates of unemployment in most of the other western industrialized nations, it is still about 25 percent higher than what many economists regard as being the full employment rate of about four percent.

- Construction employment increased by 33,000, with much of the gain occurring in residential contracting, which saw an increase of 20,000 jobs. Hmmm. Can anyone say Katrina? How about Rita? I thought you could.

- Employment in the manufacturing industry increased by 12,000 jobs in October. Great news, especially in light of all of the very legitimate concerns about U.S. manufacturing jobs being sent offshore. Maybe, must maybe, we've begun to turn the corner in this area and that most of the manufacturing jobs which economically could be performed in lower wage countries are now being performed in those other countries. If so, then we'll likely see little to no further manufacturing job losses and perhaps even some continued gains as we add more of the manufacturing jobs which require greater skill levels than are available in many of the low wage countries.

- Employment in the transportation equipment sector increased by 22,000. This is due primarily to the return of 18,000 workers in the aerospace industry. Given the high wages that many of those workers earn and the importance of the transportation equipment sector to our economy, this is also great news.

- Employment in the financial activities sector continued to grow. In October, we picked up 22,000 jobs. This is a sector that had been really hurting, so it is great to see the rebound.

Overall, a pretty good report considering how terrible it could have been. The report is a testament to the strength and diversified nature of the U.S. economy.

I was in Montreal for a family celebration over the Labor Day weekend. The news was full of the devastation being wrought upon Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina. One of my Canadian relatives said to me that the devastation would surely put the U.S. economy into recession. Although he is very bright and has years of experience on me, I knew that he was wrong and told him so. There is no doubt that the U.S. economy has its share of problems and that many of our citizens should be better off than they are, but the U.S. economy is amazingly resilient. I believed that it could withstand Katrina even before anyone knew that Rita would be following up just a few weeks later. Thankfully, this was one of those rare occasions when I was right.