WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to its lowest in nearly 5-1/2 years during October as 92,000 more jobs were added and hiring in each of the two prior months was revised up, a government report on Friday showed.

Average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent to $16.91 - higher than the 0.3 percent that analysts had anticipated - while the average work week edged up to 33.9 hours from 33.8. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 3.9 percent, the department said.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, November 3rd, 2006 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.