It's growth, but still well below the break even point. (Krugman said back in 2009 that we needed to add at least 300,000 jobs per month just to break even.)
The private sector added 110,000 jobs in October, a bit better than expected but still indicative that the labor market is showing little improvement.
Coupled with a report showing that planned layoffs at U.S. firms dropped in October after hitting a more than two-year high the month before, unemployment is showing only grudging signs of improvement.
"This sort of number is consistent at best with I'd say holding the unemployment rate constant," Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisors, said in a CNBC interview.
