In September, the US payrolls report came out materially stronger than expected. Nonfarm payrolls jumped by 103 000 in September, almost twice as much as expected (55 000) and also the figures of the previous two month were significantly upwardly revised. The July outcome was adjusted from 85 000 to 127 000 and the August one from 0 to 57 000. All revisions taken into account, the payrolls were 147 000 above expectations. Looking at the details, private employment jumped by 137 000, while government payrolls fell by 34 000 led by a 35 000 decline in local government jobs. Private sector details show that strength was based in the services sector, where employment increased by 119 000 (from 51 000). In goods-producing, employment picked up by 18 000 (from -9 000) due to strength in the construction sector (26 000 from -7 000), while the manufacturing sector lost 13 000 jobs, the second straight decline. Within the services sector, employment rebounded in information (34 000 from -51 000), due to the return of the (36,16 USD, 0,70%) strikers. But also the education (45 000 from 38 000), business services (48 000 from 38 000) and trade and transport sectors (7 000 from 3 000) added jobs in September. In the financial sector employment dropped by 8 000 (from 5 000) and employment fell also in leisure and hospitality (-4 000 from 10 000), after the Holidays. Temporary help, which is often a good precursor for the headline figure, rose for a third straight month (19 000 from 20 000) as also the previous two figures were significantly upwardly revised. The household survey shows that the unemployment rate stayed unchanged at 9.1% in September, for a third consecutive month. The number of people unemployed increased by 25 000 to 13.992 million and also the civilian labour force grew, by 423 000 to 154.017 million. Also employment jumped significantly, by 398 000, the second straight increase. Both average (0.2% M/M) and aggregate (0.4% M/M) weekly hours worked increased in September and average hourly earnings picked up by 0.2% M/M after falling by 0.2% M/M in August. After the extremely poor August report, this stronger than expected outcome and the revisions of the previous months data are a welcome sign that the US economy is not faring as bad as feared. It might cause some relieve within the Fed and US government, although the pace of employment growth is not strong enough to bring the rate of unemployment significantly down. Overall however, this week’s important economic data all surprised on the upside of expectations, indicating that investors had become too pessimistic on the pace of growth in the US.