New unemployment claims have fallen every week for a month straight — down to a pandemic low of 281,000 — after elevated figures through much of the pandemic. Business surveys, like IHS Markit’s purchasing managers’ index, show that service sector employers — the largest portion of the economy, by far — are increasing workforce numbers at the quickest rate since June, when the country added nearly 1 million workers to the payrolls.

And consumer confidence, the engine of the U.S. economy, reversed a months long slide in October to mark high numbers, according to the Conference Board’s monthly survey. Consumers were also the most optimistic about their own prospects to find jobs since 2000, the survey found.

Consumer desire to travel was the highest since before the pandemic. Restaurant reservations have recovered in October, from a dip in September, as measured by data from Open Table, to nearly return to pre-pandemic levels. Overall coronavirus cases have gone down by more than 50 percent since the peak mid-September.

“Job growth picked up in the month of October, with a lot of the temporary head winds that held it back in the last few months less of an issue,” said Bill Adams, senior economist for the PNC Financial Services Group. “I think one of the reasons job growth was faster in October is people felt like they were less likely to be pulled out of the workforce.”