President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris got the worst news imaginable on Friday, just days ahead of the November election. Job creation in October slowed to its weakest pace since late 2020 as the impacts of storms in the Southeast and a significant labor impasse dented hiring plans. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 12,000 for the month, down sharply from September and below the Dow Jones estimate for 100,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. It was the smallest gain since December 2020.
Elsewhere, the bureau said average hourly earnings increased 0.4% for the month, slightly higher than the estimate, though the 4% 12-month gain was in line. The average work week held steady at 34.3 hours. The agency noted that it made no changes to the October report due to the hurricanes, explaining that “it is likely that payroll employment estimates in some industries were affected by the hurricanes; however, it is not possible to quantify the net effect on the over-the-month change in national employment, hours, or earnings estimates because the establishment survey is not designed to isolate effects from extreme weather events.”
The number of permanently unemployed individuals rose to 1.8 million in October, while the count of those on temporary layoff remained relatively unchanged at 846,000. The number of long-term unemployed, defined as those jobless for 27 weeks or more, also remained stable at 1.6 million in October, an increase from 1.3 million a year ago. Long-term unemployed individuals now make up 22.9% of all unemployed people.
“As expected, the October jobs report shows a big impact from Hurricanes Milton and Helene,” Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, told Fox Business. “The big one-off shocks that struck the economy in October make it impossible to know whether the job market was changing direction in the month, but the downward revisions to job growth through September show it was cooling before these shocks struck.”
