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Economy adds 12,000 jobs in October, the slowest pace in nearly four years The unemployment rate was 4.1 percent. Economists cautioned that recent hurricanes and labor strikes artificially depressed data.

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One hint of the storms’ impact: More than half a million people reported being employed but not at work because of bad weather. That’s ten times as many as in September.
There were also large downward revisions to job gains in both August and September. The revisions wiped out a combined 112,000 jobs across the two months.
Notably, hiring was weak in many of the sectors where we’d expect to see the impact of the storms and strikes. Manufacturing employment fell by 46,000, probably due mostly to the Boeing strike. And employment was down in retail and leisure and hospitality, sectors that are prone to disruption from hurricanes.
Job creation stalled in October, with employers adding only 12,000 positions in a month that included a major strike and two destructive hurricanes. Unemployment remained steady at 4.1 percent.

The number was significantly lower than economists had expected, suggesting either that disruptions took a larger toll than they had forecast, or that the underlying pace of job growth might be slowing.

The report is the last before a contentious election in which the economy has consistently polled as a top issue for voters, as well as a Federal Reserve meeting at which officials will decide whether to drop interest rates further.

  • Strike effects: The Labor Department said the strike at Boeing and a few smaller work stoppages probably kept 41,000 people off payrolls — not including those furloughed from the same companies or laid off by related businesses.

  • Storm disruptions: Hurricanes Helene and Milton cut a wide swath of destruction through the Southeast last month, affecting leisure and hospitality businesses in particular.

Friday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that the unemployment rate remained at 4.1% last month. The low jobless rate suggests that the labor market is still fundamentally healthy, if not as robust as it was early this year. Combined with an inflation rate that has tumbled from its 2022 peak to near pre-pandemic levels, the overall economy appears to be on solid footing on the eve of Election Day. 
 The government did not estimate how many jobs were likely removed temporarily from payrolls last month. But economists have said they think the storms and strikes caused up to 100,000 jobs to be dropped. Reflecting the impact of the strikes, factories shed 46,000 positions in October. RELATED COVERAGE Image Jobs report on eve of election will be among the most muddled in years Image US job openings fell in September to a 3 1/2-year low Image How to protect yourself from scammers offering fake jobs In a cautionary sign for future hiring, though, temporary job placement firms lost 49,000 jobs last month. Companies often take on temporary workers before committing to full-time employees. On the other hand, healthcare companies added 52,000 jobs in October, and state and local governments tacked on 39,000. The employment report for October also revised down the government’s estimate of the job gains in August and September by a combined 112,000, indicating that the labor market wasn’t quite as robust then as initially thought. “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,’’ Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank, wrote in a commentary. “But the downward revisions to job growth through September show it was cooling before these shocks struck.’’ Still, economists have noted that the United States has the strongest of the world’s most advanced economies, one that has proved surprisingly durable despite the pressure of high interest rates.
 This week, for example, the government estimated that the economy expanded at a healthy 2.8% annual rate last quarter, with consumer spending helping drive growth. Yet as voters choose between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala 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 the recovery from the pandemic recession and remain about 20% higher on average than they were before inflation began accelerating in early 2021. With inflation having significantly cooled, the Fed is set to cut its benchmark interest rate next week for a second time and likely again in December. The Fed’s 11 rate hikes in 2022 and 2023 managed to help slow inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. A series of Fed rate cuts should lead, over time, to lower borrowing rates for consumers and businesses. In the meantime, there have been signs of a slowdown in the job market. This week, the Labor Department reported that employers posted 7.4 million job openings in September. Though that is still more than employers posted on the eve of the 2020 pandemic, it amounted to the fewest openings since January 2021. And 3.1 million Americans quit their jobs in September, the fewest in more than four years. A drop in quits tends to indicate that more workers are losing confidence in their ability to land better jobs elsewhere. 


 Even so, with the unemployment rate and the number of people seeking unemployment aid each week still uncommonly low, Americans as a whole continue to enjoy unusual job security “The cooling of the jobs market is still ongoing,’’ said Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo. “Overall, the jobs market — it’s not falling apart, but it’s too early to say that conditions have stabilized.’’ For employers, a softer job market is easing the labor shortages that left many of them struggling to find and keep workers over the past few years. Jon Abt, co-president of Abt Electronics in Chicago, said it has become somewhat easier to hire, and his company has felt less pressure to raise wages this year.
 Still, finding qualified installers and service technicians remains a challenge. The electronics retailer, which employs 1,750, including 200 part-timers, runs its own training program, works with trade schools to find workers, and also receives applicants by referral. If the job market deteriorates further, Abt said, “it will be easier to find quality people we are looking for.”

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