Employment market turmoil created by recent hurricanes and significant labor strikes was expected to impact today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs data. While the BLS could not directly quantify storm and strike damage to the data, most analysts had estimated an impact of up to 100,000 jobs.
With that as background, today’s data indicated employment essentially unchanged, increasing 12,000 versus September, significantly lower than the consensus estimate expansion of 100,000 and lower than the average monthly gain of 194,000 over the prior 12 months.
Additionally, the change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised down by 81,000, from +159,000 to +78,000, and the change for September was revised down by 31,000, from +254,000 to +223,000. With these revisions, employment in August and September combined is 112,000 lower than previously reported.
The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1 percent in October, and the number of unemployed people was little changed at 7.0 million. These measures are higher than a year earlier, when the jobless rate was 3.8 percent, and the number of unemployed people was 6.4 million.
“The U.S. electorate decision-making process is coming to a close, and we look for the experts’ final efforts at spinning today’s job results to favor their particular candidate throughout the next three or four days.
A different decision-making process that our MRINetwork team of over 1000 talent consultants is immersed in is the ongoing debate over the role of remote work in the future of our jobs market,” noted Rick Hermanns, president and chief executive officer of HireQuest Inc., parent company of MRINetwork.
“Our recent whitepaper and our ongoing talent consultations with senior client executives stresses the need for a measured and well thought out policy. We urge clients to avoid knee-jerk remote work decisions in what must be a metrics driven evaluation process. I call it a ‘tricky trilemma’ as firms search for the right balance of three possible decisions — unlimited work-from-home, a hybrid approach, or an in-office mandate.
The right answer will vary by industry and even by cultural differences of firms within an industry. In the meantime, the estimated 42 percent of workers now working exclusively from home or in a hybrid environment are looking for decisions from the 64 percent of 1,300 CEOs recently surveyed by KPMG who expect all workers will be back in office by 2026.”
Reporter Eric Revell in Fox Business, confirming the BLS analysis of weather and strike variances, referenced Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. She explained that her firm expects the ongoing Boeing strike, plus a smaller, recently resolved strike and auto sector layoffs, will result in a net loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector for October. “We expect the strike affecting 33,000 workers at Boeing and a strike of 5,000 workers at Textron, an aerospace parts maker in Kansas, to drive a decline in manufacturing jobs of 50,000.” Vanden Houten added that while the Textron strike ended a week ago, it was in effect during the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ reference period for the October jobs report. She also noted that Hurricanes Helene and Milton are expected to subtract about 70,000 from net job growth across industries, but particularly in leisure and hospitality, business and professional services, and construction.
Adding additional insight into today’s data, Bloomberg reporter, Matthew Boesler noted, “The numbers will complicate the picture for Federal Reserve officials trying to discern the outlook for the labor market at their November 6-7 policy meeting. Still, the central bank is widely expected to authorize a quarter-point interest-rate cut at the meeting, following on from an initial half-point reduction in September.”
Key industries reported the following trends in October:
Healthcare added 52,000 jobs in October, in line with the average monthly gain of 58,000 over the prior 12 months.
Employment in government continued its upward trend in October (+40,000), similar to the average monthly gain of 43,000 over the prior 12 months.
Within professional and business services, employment in temporary help services declined by 49,000 in October. Temporary help services employment has decreased by 577,000 since reaching a peak in March 2022.
Manufacturing employment decreased by 46,000 in October, reflecting a decline of 44,000 in transportation equipment manufacturing that was largely due to strike activity.
Employment in construction changed little in October (+8,000). The industry had added an average of 20,000 jobs per month over the prior 12 months.
Employment showed little or no change over the month in other major industries, including mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; wholesale trade; retail trade; transportation and warehousing; information; financial activities; leisure and hospitality; and other services.
“I recently participated in a podcast with former Florida governor and current business leader Jeb Bush exploring the new era of remote working possibilities. We both agreed that hybrid solutions will likely emerge, custom fit for individual firms. However, we both remained sensitive to the needs of a core workplace cohort, new college grads entering the work force for the first time. We wrestled with solutions to ensure that these social media-savvy newcomers to technical, professional and managerial roles gained the benefit that every previous generation has had in leveraging the power of mentorship and in face-to-face networking interactions,” noted Hermanns.