October jobs report: U.S. adds 261,000 payrolls, unemployment rises to 3.7%
Yahoo Finance Live anchors break down the October jobs report.
Video Transcript
[AUDIO LOGO]
- And 261,000-- 261,000 jobs added to the US economy in October. That's, of course, above the 195,000 that was estimated here. The unemployment rate going up to 3.7%-- 3.7% versus the 3.6% that was estimated. Average hourly earnings did come in line with estimates at 4.7% versus the 4.7% estimated.
The participation rate ticking down a 1/10 of a percentage point to 62.2% from 62.3%. That is an important read that we have been watching closely as well. So when you look at the change in nonfarm payrolls going higher, 261,000, but the unemployment rate also going higher, 3.6%-- 3.7%, excuse me-- just a reminder to our viewers that these come from different surveys, right?
You have, on the one hand, companies saying what they're doing. On the other hand, you have the household survey, where the BLS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is surveying folks for what's happening in their homes. You're looking at the release on what's going on here.
- Yeah, a little bit of a strange report. No clear, I think, indication what this might mean initially for Fed policy. Of course, these numbers just hit. But I will note, nonfarm payrolls for August revised down by 23,000, but September revised up by 52,000. And you also had wages year over year growing by 4.7%. Brad, just a report that I think might add a little more confusion to the markets here. But we're seeing right now stocks a little bit in the green.
- Yeah, you know, I love to dive into some of the sectors that we see the biggest gains. And then the notable job gains, they actually occurred in health care, professional, and technical services, as well as manufacturing here. And just running through some of those numbers very briefly, because health care, that rose by 53,000 jobs. You saw professional technical service at 43,000 jobs in October. And then additional recovery, continued recovery, and leisure and hospitality turned it up by about 350,000 jobs there.
And so all of these considered here, looking through where the jobs are still coming back, it's a larger question of, will that continue to maintain or sustain itself, even as we do see some of the hiring freezes start to be talked about, or moved more forward in kind of more of a sweeping fashion at this point?
- And just quickly, where we saw weakness within job additions was in warehousing and storage, which saw a drop of 20,000. Kind of interesting there. Financial activities, employment, little change. So that's something to keep in mind, too. It's not just layoffs and freezes that we've been hearing about within the tech industry. It's on Wall Street as well.
