Jobs report on eve of election will be among the most muddled in years
Yet Friday's report will include some of the most distorted monthly employment figures in years, with job growth having been held down temporarily in October by hurricanes and worker strikes.
So just as voters, politicians and
Trump and his supporters have repeatedly attacked the Biden-Harris administration for the spike in inflation that peaked two years ago before steadily cooling. Despite healthy job growth, few layoffs and low unemployment, Trump has also charged that
Typically, the monthly jobs data helps clarify how the economy is faring. But economists estimate that Hurricanes Helene and Milton, combined with the effects of the ongoing strike by Boeing machinists, will have reduced hiring last month by a significant number - roughly 60,000 to 100,000 jobs, most of them only temporarily.
All told, economists have estimated that Friday's report will show that just 120,000 jobs were added in October, according to the data provider FactSet. That is a decent number, though less than half of September's unexpectedly robust 254,000 gain. The unemployment rate is expected to remain at a low 4.1%.
Once the impact of the hurricanes and strikes are considered, those figures would still point to a solid job market, one that has shown surprising durability, buoyed by healthy consumer spending, in the face of the Fed's high interest rates.
"This is a really incredibly resilient economy," said
Yet there may be other effects that the government has a harder time measuring.
At the same time, the hurricane might have cost fewer jobs than economists expect.
A worker would have to lose pay for an entire pay period - often two weeks - for their job to be considered lost in the government's data. Though many workers in
Economists at
And in some states, people will be hired as part of the cleanup and rebuilding efforts.
Friday's jobs report will be the last major snapshot of the economy before the Fed's next meeting
Most economists expect the Fed to reduce its benchmark rate by a quarter-point, after an outsize half-point cut in September.
If the jobs report suggests that hiring stayed healthy in October excluding the effects of the hurricanes and strike, Republican political figures may question its credibility again. Last month, when the government reported that hiring had jumped unexpectedly in September, Sen.
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