The economy continues its slow and steady recovery. Job growth was solid but not spectacular again last month, which has some political implications as well.

The last remaining political land mine embedded in Barack Obama’s path to reelection has failed to detonate.

With time fast running out, the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning released the last monthly jobs report we’ll see in this election. The news was unexpectedly decent: 171,000 nonfarm jobs added in October, and unemployment essentially unchanged at 7.9 percent.

What’s more, the August numbers were revised upwards from 142,000 to 192,000, and the September numbers were boosted from 114,000 to 148,000. This suggests the possibility that something was stirring in the economy that we hadn’t picked up, and could help explain why Obama’s small but seemingly durable edge in the electoral college has persisted.

These are solid numbers for President Obama‘s campaign in a super close election as the unemployment rate stayed below 8%. The Mitt Romney campaign will point it that the rate ticked up a tenth of a point.

The unemployment rate ticked back up to 8.2% as the economy added far fewer jobs than expected in May. The crisis is Europe certainly isn’t helping as companies are becoming cautious again.

Don’t let this discourage you in your job search, as the numbers are still positive. At least we aren’t losing hundreds of thousands of jobs like we did at the end of 2008 and into 2009.

The good news on jobs keep coming.

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits were unchanged last week, holding at the lowest level since the early days of the 2007-2009 recession and giving a fresh sign the battered labor market is healing.

Workers filed 351,000 initial claims for state unemployment benefits, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week’s figure was revised up to 351,000 from the previously reported 348,000.

The last two weekly readings have been the lowest since March 2008. The four-week moving average for new claims, a measure of labor market trends, fell 7,000 to 359,000 —also the lowest since March 2008.

Get that resume out again!

The news on jobs keeps improving.

Weekly jobless claims moved sharply lower, while inflation remained tame and housing starts unexpectedly weakened in December, according to a set of data painting a mixed picture of the economic recovery.

Weekly unemployment benefit applications dropped to 352,000, the fewest in nearly four years.

The buzz out there is that manufacturing is a big part of the rebound.

It will be interesting to see how the improving job situation will affect the 2012 presidential election.

Slowly but surely, we’re starting to see a rebound in the US economy. Manufacturing is picking up, consumers are spending more and companies are starting to hire. The unemployment rate has now dropped to 8.5% after the economy added 200,000 jobs in December.

The jobs report builds on a several new indicators pointing toward an economy on the upswing.

The government reported Thursday that claims for unemployment benefits declined in the final week of December, moving the average over the past four weeks to its lowest level in more than three years.

The Institute for Supply Management reported this week that its employment index for December was 55.1, the highest reading since June. A reading above 50 means that more companies are creating jobs than cutting them.

The nation’s factories have added more than 300,000 jobs since the beginning of 2010 — about 13 percent of what was lost during the recession — marking the first sustained increase in manufacturing employment since 1997, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Auto sales in December were up, continuing their substantial improvement from the summer. And for all of 2011, vehicle sales rose 10 percent.

The auto numbers are critical. For example, Chrysler sales keep increasing and the company is adding jobs.

The economy has added jobs for 15 consecutive months so there is reason for continued optimism.

If you’ve been out of work and have given up, go back and start looking again.