The October Jobs Report – USA

The job market is cooling across America, slowing to a pace not seen since late 2020 during COVID lockdowns. Now, one must remember that natural disasters decimated numerous states. Yet, I tend to look at two things – public sector growth and manufacturing.

Unemployment stands at 4.1%, while the measure of discouraged and underemployed workers held steady at 7.7%. Per usual, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics revised their calculations for previous months. August’s growth whittled down to 78,000 and September’s calculation came in at 223,000, marking a total decline of 112,000 reported jobs in that two-month period.

The US has been desperate to revive its manufacturing sector. The Biden-Harris Administration had promised to create one million new manufacturing jobs in 2024, but 10 months of data later, and it seems not a single position was created. The BLS admitted that manufacturing jobs fell by 577,000 since March 2022. In October, the sector loss 49,000, largely attributed to the Boeing strike.

So, America is struggling to produce goods to sell. In the meantime, the federal government bulked up the public sector by 40,000 jobs. Those are 40,000 employees relying on taxpayer funds and pensions in a sector that only SUBTRACTS from GDP. Biden and Harris have increased the public sector by about 43,000 positions on average every month for the past 12 months.

The first release of data is always the most optimistic. The country is clearly on the wrong track as we are endlessly spending money on big government while the private sector is weakening.