Last week saw the release of US unemployment data for the month of October and revision (based on more complete data) of the figures for August and September which showed that unemployment had been marginally overstated. The US economy created a further 214000 jobs in October which was below analysts’ expectation of 230000 new positions. However, the monthly job creation figure has now produced nine straight months of new posts created being above the 200k mark – this is the best job creation streak since 1995.

Job creation usually follows the ending of a recession as businesses take on new staff to meet anticipated rises in demand for their goods and services as the recovery sets in. In the case of the Global Financial Crisis, this job creation phase has been much more shallow than usual because global demand has remained subdued during the recovery phase.

US unemployment (measured by the number of people claiming benefits and actively seeking work) stands at 5.8%, its lowest level since July 2008. Across 2014, almost 2.9 million jobs have been created as the economy recovers. Of these, more than 2.2 million jobs have been created in the private sector. However, with 8.995 million Americans unemployed and actively looking for work, the statistics are put into context – the figures do not reflect those who would like to work, but are no longer considered to be actively seeking a job, or those working fewer hours than they would like.

The work force participation rate stands at 62.8% which reveals the proportion of the American population left out in the cold by the recovery in the US economy. US unemployment has now dipped below the average figure for the economy (between 1948 and 2014) of 5.83%. The range on this data was from 2.5% (May 1953) to 10.8% (November 1982) according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.