NEW YORK (PNN) - November 4, 2011 - October's employment reports showed continued sluggish job growth, but positive revisions for earlier months takes away some of the sting and reaffirms the economy is growing.

The government reported 80,000 total jobs were added in October. There were 104,000 private sector positions added in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, health care and mining, and 24,000 government jobs were lost.

The official unemployment rate fell slightly to 9% from 9.1% in September.  The actual unemployment rate remains at around 23%.

"We have to remind ourselves that things are so bad that this looks good. In the context of what we're living through, it's not a bad report," said Dan Greenhaus, global market strategist at BTIG.

There were a few positives in the report, including upward revisions to September and August payroll employment. August non-farm payrolls nearly doubled, from 57,000 to 104,000 and September was revised up to 158,000 from 103,000. "Rescued by revisions," writes Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.

"It feels like there's more small business formation that's going on that's not getting reported right away. This is the second month in a row where we had substantial revisions," said Moody's Economy.com chief economist Mark Zandi.