Halloween may have come and gone, but the October jobs report – released this morning by the BLS – was not that scary.
Three things to know from today’s BLS report.
Here’s the News You Can Use From Today’s Release:
1. Numbers were slightly lower than expected, but the unemployment rate also dropped.Economists had predicted that today’s BLS job gains would be somewhere in the 170,000-plus range; but in reality the U.S. economy added 161,000 jobs in October. But the unemployment rate dropped from 5 percent to 4.9 percent.
Some reactions to the report: “Economists had forecast another report that was neither super-impressive nor terrible, and that’s what we got.”
However, it’s also worthwhile to note that an additional 44,000 jobs were added over the course of August and September, according to some new BLS revisions.
2. This is the last jobs report before the elections. So how might the candidates use this report to extract some talking points?
According to Business Insider: “As both presidential candidates make their final pitches to voters, they can pick data points in this report to advance their narratives. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, can point to the number of jobs that have been created during the recovery, the record 73 straight months of gains, and the drop in the unemployment rate to a postrecession low. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, can focus on the headline print that missed expectations and the 5.9 million people who still work part-time for economic reasons.”
According to The New York Times: “While the final weeks of the presidential campaign seemed to be preoccupied with everything but the economy, Friday’s report from the Labor Department refocused attention – at least briefly – on the crucial bread-and-butter issue: jobs. For the candidates, the latest employment report …[allows] each side to offer its own distinctive narrative of the economy’s performance and prospects.”