About that Jobs Report

By Oliver Rust, Head of Product

Last Friday the Labor Department announced the unemployment rate remained at 4.1%.  This low jobless rate suggests the labor market is still fundamentally healthy, if not as robust as earlier this year.

Additionally, a paltry 12,000 jobs were added in October, and has no doubt provided a blurry view of the job market as last month's hiring gain was down significantly from the 223,000 added in September. 

The impact of the Hurricanes Helene and Milton combined with the strikes at Boeing and elsewhere had the effect of pushing down net job growth by tens of thousands in October.

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Although there is no direct number of how many jobs were likely removed temporarily from payrolls as a result, estimates of the natural and human-made disasters to 100,000 to be dropped.  

Despite the continued addition to the employment market highlighted by the Dept of Labor as well as ADP, there is a cautionary sign for future hiring as temporary job placement firms lost 49,000 jobs last month. During that time Healthcare companies added 51,300 jobs while government added 40,000 positions in October (seasonally adjusted). 

The big one-off shock that struck the economy in October essentially makes it impossible to know whether the job market is ultimately changing direction. A recent downward revision in September does suggest that maybe the market is cooling. The election campaigns will also have a significant impact on the temporary job market, and as we come to Election Day, and this cycle's end, this is likely to impact numbers for November.

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On top of all this, the average hourly earnings for all employees on nonfarm payrolls rose 13%, or 0.4% over the month (October vs September 2024). Wages have also increased 6.3% versus a year ago. The effect of the since-resolved port unions' salary dispute will have a continued impact as they come into play. As of this writing, Boeing workers appear to have hammered out their differences on that score – a 38% increase spread over 4 years, which is a slight increase from the previous proposal of 35%.  This will touch more than 33,000 West Coast factory workers.

All this suggests the labor market and broader economy are in relatively positive situations, yet as voters choose between President Trump and Vice President Harris, large numbers of Americans have said they are unhappy with the state of the economy. Despite the plummeting of inflation, many people are exasperated by high prices, which surged during recovery from the pandemic recession. Prices remain about 25% higher on average than they were before inflation began accelerating in early 2021.

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