Local economist weighs in on US jobs report for October
Nov 1, 2024, 12:00 PM
FILE - A hiring sign is in front of a Target store in Manchester, Conn., Nov. 39, 2021. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
(AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest jobs report on Friday morning. October saw 12,000 jobs added, keeping the unemployment rate at 4.1%.
The report attributed the modest job gains to the recent hurricanes and strikes, with the biggest loss in manufacturing. According to the report, jobs in health care and government continued to see growth.
Zions Bank Chief Senior Economist Robert Spendlove joined Utah’s Morning News to discuss the numbers. He said there have been big fluctuations in the jobs reports.
“So, the prior month was 194,000 [jobs added]. So, a big increase … [We] almost went negative for this month.”
Spendlove said this was not unexpected.
“We’ve seen some big fluctuations from the hurricanes in the south to the strike of Boeing … that alone subtracted about 100,000 jobs [from] the report. And so, we thought going into this report, that we’ll see some noise and it’s really noisy,” he said. “There’s really no way to break it down, and know how much of a factor the hurricane was.”
Spendlove said the impact of hurricanes was so destructive it kept a lot of people from working, holding back job creation.
“But it could have even a bigger impact than we expected … But remember that, the prior month, when we first got the data, it came in at 250,000 so it’s such a big swing. It almost makes us have to ignore that top line number and focus on the underlying data,” he said.
“The unemployment rate, which is really important, essentially was unchanged at 4.1%, so that’s a good indicator.”
Jobs numbers and the election
Utah’s Morning News host Tim Hughs asked if this report could impact next week’s election.
“Yeah, there will be a lot of spin. So what you’ll see [is] one side focusing on that top line number and saying the job market is deteriorating. You’ll have the other side, focusing on the underlying unemployment rate. I suspect what really matters is how the Federal Reserve is going to respond,” Spendlove said, noting the Fed will meet two days after the election.
“I think the Fed is going to look past this … and just say ‘there’s too much noise, we’re going to focus on the underlying job market which has been pretty strong.'”
