Business news with words department+earnings+expected. 3 news.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Macy's Inc. swung to a third-quarter profit of $33 million, or 8 cents a share, from a year-earlier loss of $3 million, or 1 cent a share. Excluding May Co. merger integration costs of $17 million, earnings for the period were 10 cents a share. The Cincinnati department store chain operator said revenue for the thirteen weeks ended Nov. 3 rose less than 1% to $5.91 billion from $5.89 billion during the year-ago period. On average, analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of 7 cents a share on revenue of $5.9 billion. Macy's expects earnings, excluding items, of $1.70 to $1.80 a share for the fourth-quarter. The company expects same-store sales in the range of down 2% to up 1% for the fourth-quarter and expects November same-store sales to be "significantly" higher and December to be "below last year." Macy's expects total sales for the fourth quarter of $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion. The company expects same-store sales to be down 0.3% to 1.3% for the year. Total sales for the year are expected at $26.4 billion to $26.6 billion.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Shaking off fears about weakness in housing and credit, the U.S. economy created 166,000 net jobs in October, the best job growth since May, the Labor Department reported Friday. The unemployment rate was steady at 4.7% as expected. Job growth as measured by a survey of 400,000 businesses was stronger than the 93,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch, but a separate survey of 60,000 households showed a loss of 250,000 workers, the third decline in the past four months. Jobs continued to be lost in the manufacturing and construction sectors, offset by growth in public schools, health care, business services, food service, and temporary-help services. Average hourly earnings rose 3 cents to $17.58 an hour, or 0.2%. Average hourly earnings are up 3.8% in the past year.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Job growth came to a screeching halt in August, the Labor Department said Friday. Nonfarm payrolls contracted by 4,000 in August. This was the first decline in payrolls since August 2003. The decline was much weaker than than the 115,000 increase expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.6% in August from the previous month. Average hourly earnings increased 5 cents, or 0.3% to $17.50. This was in line with expectations. Earnings are up 3.9% in the past year. The average workweek held steady at 33.8 hours. This was also in line with expectations.