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The U.S. economy added 151,000 jobs in October, but the unemployment rate held steady, the government said Friday, the latest data pointing to an economy that is finally strengthening as the year nears its end.

Employers added more than double the jobs that analysts had expected, and October represented the strongest job growth since May, the Labor Department said. It was a welcome change after four months of job losses, but not enough to make a dent in unemployment.

Still, the burst of hiring never- theless raised hopes that companies are finally emerging from the hiring stall seen during much of the summer.

"The big picture from this report and some of the others recently all points to a pickup in growth in the beginning of the fourth quarter," said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics. "The notion that the economy might be double-dipping can now be safely tossed out."

Among the newly hired, Chaska's Kate-Madonna Hindes, is good news times two. Not only did she get a job in October, she got a job as a job recruiter -- a person who helps corporations that have decided to hire more people.

"After four months of sending out hundreds of résumés, I've found a job that's a perfect fit," said Hindes, 29, who was hired by Brigham Group Staffing of Bloomington in response to an uptick in the number of corporate jobs it was being asked to help fill.

She formerly worked as a freelance writer and as a trainer for job seekers at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Her specialty is showing people how to use online social networking to find a job, which turned out to be handy skill when she was unemployed.

The easiest thing about being a job recruiter is finding a pool of applicants, she said. The hardest is not being able to hire them all. "You want to give people a job because you know they're hurting," Hindes said. "You have to have tougher skin."

Past months revised

Private companies have been expanding their payrolls throughout 2010, Friday's report said. Private job growth had been overwhelmed by the elimination of temporary decennial census jobs and layoffs by state and local government during the summer and early fall -- until October.

Companies added 159,000 jobs last month, after a gain of 107,000 jobs in September. Governments cut 8,000 jobs following losses of 148,000 positions in September. Most forecasts were for a gain of 60,000 jobs in October.

The report also revised the numbers for August and September. The August data was revised to reflect a loss of 1,000 jobs instead of 57,000, and September was revised to 41,000 losses instead of 95,000. The economy last added jobs in May, when more than 400,000 workers were hired by the federal government to help with the census.

President Obama hailed the numbers, but also noted that they mean little to the nearly one in 10 Americans searching for a job and coming up empty-handed. "The fact is, an encouraging jobs report doesn't make a difference if you're still one of the millions of people who are looking for work," he said before departing on a four-nation Asia trip, where, he said, he intends to try and "pry open markets" and look for other ways to strengthen the economy at home.

"We've got to keep fighting for every job, for every small business, for every opportunity to get this economy moving," he said. "I am open to any idea, any proposal."

Indeed, the economy has a long way to go before the world brightens for many Americans. Nearly 15 million people are out of work and looking, and the unemployment rate, which remained steady at 9.6 percent, has been relatively flat since May.

Also, the stable overall jobless rate masked some shifts within the workforce: 254,000 people dropped out of the labor force, and the number of people reporting themselves as looking for work also fell. That may bode ill for the future, in that as the economy continues to improve, many of those who have exited the labor force are likely to reenter it, which could increase the unemployment rate over the coming year.

The government-sector losses were highest among state and local governments, at 14,000, excluding education. That suggests that state budget woes continue to lead governments to cut back on civil servants.

A broader measure of unemployment, which counts people who are working part time but want full-time work and those who have given up looking for a job out of frustration, edged down to 17 percent from 17.1 percent. Unemployment fell most steeply among blacks, to 15.7 percent from 16.1 percent.

The picture in Minnesota

Scott Anderson, director and senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co. in Minneapolis, said the numbers reveal "a mixed picture on employment. We're creating a lot of private-sector jobs, but not enough to move the needle on unemployment. The economy is spinning its wheels, and we've got a sluggish, half-hearted economic recovery."

The national job statistics ran counter to the most recent Minnesota numbers, which showed a loss of 9,900 jobs and flat unemployment in September. Included in Minnesota job losses were 6,100 private sector jobs.

But the jobs picture in Minnesota shifts from month to month, said Kirsten Morell, a DEED spokeswoman. "A month earlier, we had a gain of 600 jobs," she said. And Minnesota's jobless rate of 7 percent is significantly lower than the national rate of 9.6 percent

The new reading on the nation's job market comes two days after the Federal Reserve started a new effort to pump $600 billion into the economy, an action specifically aimed at trying to break the nation out of its high-unemployment rut.

Economists cautioned that despite the hiring gains, unemployment isn't expected to budge much this year. Economists say it would take up to 300,000 new jobs a month to reduce the unemployment rate significantly. To date, 7.5 million jobs have vanished since the recession started. Economists think it could take until near the end of the decade to drop the jobless rate to 6 percent.

"Even though the economy is no longer in recession, the unemployment rate is coming down very slowly," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday.

Still, the most recent readings on the economy, including Friday's report, offer some hope that growth may finally accelerate as 2011 begins.

Star Tribune staff writer Steve Alexander, the New York Times, Washington Post and Associated Press contributed to this story.