Payrolls in America grew more than forecast in October, showing that employers were optimistic the world’s biggest economy could overcome the government shutdown. Per Bloomberg:

The addition of 204,000 workers followed a revised 163,000 gain in September that was larger than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 91 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 120,000 advance. The jobless rate rose to 7.3 percent from an almost five-year low.

“The economy isn’t as weak as people seem to think it is in the fourth quarter,” Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York, said before the report. “The job market is in a phase of grinding improvement.”