Economists expected 59,000, and the average monthly gain over the prior 12 months was 48,000. The unemployment rate was little changed at 4.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Professional and business services led the gains:
Professional and business services added 70,000 jobs, well above its 12-month average of 15,000.
Health care added 42,000, with hospitals (+16,000) and home health care (+11,000) leading.
Transportation and warehousing added 25,000 and manufacturing added 19,000.
Employment showed little change in construction, retail, leisure and hospitality, information, financial activities and government.
Unemployment detail:
The unemployment rate has stayed in a narrow range of 4.1% to 4.3% since March, and 7.1 million people are unemployed.
The labor force participation rate was 61.9%, little changed over the month.
The number of people working part time because they could not find full-time work rose by 339,000 to 4.8 million.
A broader measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and involuntary part-timers rose 0.3 percentage point to 7.9%.
The average duration of unemployment rose 2.3 weeks to 27.1 weeks, the highest since September 2021.
Wages and hours:
Average hourly earnings rose 14 cents, or 0.4%, to $38.00, and are up 3.1% over the past 12 months.
The average workweek was unchanged at 34.4 hours.
Prior month revisions:
August was revised up by 53,000 to 186,000 and September was revised up by 31,000 to 60,000.
The three-month average is now 137,000 jobs a month, up from 51,000 before the report.
The overall picture is a labor market that is on much better footing than a year ago.”
Read more via Bureau of Labor Statistics, CNBC, The New York Times
Job openings were little changed at 7.5 million in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Quits, which are voluntary departures and a gauge of workers’ willingness to leave, were the one measure that moved.
Job openings and hires:
Openings held at 7.5 million, a rate of 4.5%, with state and local government (excluding education) adding 104,000.
Hires were little changed at 5.4 million, a rate of 3.4%, with accommodation and food services adding 158,000.
Separations:
Quits rose to 3.4 million while the rate stayed at 2.1%, and quits are up 375,000 from a year ago.
Quits increased in accommodation and food services (+197,000) and fell in arts, entertainment and recreation (-19,000).
Layoffs and discharges were little changed at 1.6 million, a rate of 1.0%, with health care and social assistance down 70,000.
Total separations were little changed at 5.3 million, a rate of 3.3%.
August revisions:
Openings were revised up 111,000 to 7.2 million, hires up 79,000 to 5.3 million, and layoffs and discharges up 127,000 to 1.8 million.
Quits were revised down 22,000 to 3.0 million.
If you have a job, the right thing to do is to hang onto it if you can.”
Read more via Bureau of Labor Statistics, Marketplace
ADP’s count came in slightly ahead of the 75,000 economists expected, with professional and business services losing jobs for the third straight month. ADP and the Bureau of Labor Statistics use different data and can produce different results.
By sector:
Trade, transportation and utilities led with 39,000 jobs, followed by education and health services (28,000) and leisure and hospitality (19,000).
Financial activities added 15,000, construction 13,000 and other services 10,000.
Professional and business services lost 27,000, natural resources and mining lost 8,000, and information lost 2,000.
By region and business size:
The South added 47,000 jobs and the West added 28,000, compared with 9,000 in the Midwest and 3,000 in the Northeast.
Medium-sized establishments added 33,000 jobs, small ones added 28,000 and large ones added 24,000.
Pay growth:
Base pay rose 3.2% over the year, and gross pay rose 4.7%.
Job-stayers saw base pay rise 3.0%, while job-changers saw 4.8%.
September’s total was revised down from 90,000 to 86,000.
Employers of all sizes were hiring last month, and our data suggests that job-changers were lured by a combination of bonuses, overtime, and more hours in addition to higher base pay. Taken together, earnings growth for these workers hit its fastest pace since March 2024.”
Read more via ADP, CNBC
U.S. employers announced 43,994 job cuts in October, the lowest total for the month since 2023, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
October cuts were up 2% from September and down 71% from October 2025. Cuts through October totaled 617,189, down 44% from the same period last year.
Hiring plans reached 444,692, the highest October total since at least 2009, led by Amazon’s plan to hire 300,000 seasonal workers.
Market and economic conditions have overtaken AI as the leading reason for cuts this year, and AI was cited for 1,265 cuts in October, its lowest monthly total of 2026.
Technology announced 5,576 cuts, its lowest month of the year, but still leads all industries with 171,501 cuts so far.
Employers are holding on to the workers they have heading into the holidays, and the hiring they are announcing is largely short-term, seasonal work.”
Read more via Challenger, Gray & Christmas, The Wall Street Journal
Democrats will control both chambers, and their opening wave of bills is likely to draw from labor and employment proposals the party has backed before. The Senate filibuster and President Trump’s veto power stand in the way of becoming law.
Democrats have won 54 Senate seats to Republicans’ 44, with Alaska and Mississippi still too close to call.
Likely measures include raising the minimum wage, mandating paid sick leave, strengthening collective bargaining rights and addressing the gender wage gap.
Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, expects bills on worker misclassification and on joint employer responsibility.
Democrats could also pursue a SECURE 3.0 retirement package that would close an investment advice loophole and prohibit forced arbitration clauses.
Rep. Scott sent records preservation notices to 10 agencies, including the Labor Department, the EEOC and the NLRB.
Early oversight is expected to target OSHA, with the EEOC and NLRB also named as top targets.
Read more via Bloomberg Law
With Democrats in charge of both chambers, incoming committee chairs are likely to treat private companies as primary sources of documents and testimony.
A company does not need to be accused of wrongdoing, because holding relevant records can be enough to draw a request.
Committees are increasingly seeking closed-door testimony through transcribed interviews, which are voluntary but have led to Justice Department referrals and criminal charges over false statements.
Some committees now videotape these interviews and post clips online.
A July D.C. Circuit opinion said recipients of congressional subpoenas keep common law privileges, though Congress has long held it is not bound by them.
An August Justice Department opinion says executive privilege can cover communications between the President or certain White House advisors and private parties, but only the President can invoke it.
Read more via Wiley
Federal employee unions are pressing lawmakers to move before Democrats take over both chambers in January.
Their top priority is unwinding two executive orders that stripped two-thirds of the federal workforce of collective bargaining rights.
They also want to override President Trump’s planned 2027 pay freeze for most civilian federal employees.
The GOP-controlled House’s draft of the 2027 defense authorization bill already contains language nullifying the union order for the Defense Department workforce.
Read more via Government Executive
The employment cost index, which tracks what employers pay in wages and benefits, rose 3.4% in the 12 months through September but fell 0.4% once adjusted for inflation.
The index rose 0.8% over the quarter.
Wages and salaries for civilian workers were up 3.1% from a year earlier, the lowest since 2021, and down 0.6% after inflation.
Annual pay growth in service occupations slowed to its lowest level since 2016.
Private-sector employer costs for health benefits rose 6.4%, matching the highest since 2005.
Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little. But inflation remains elevated.”
Read more via Bloomberg
Output per hour worked rose at a 3.6% annualized rate in the third quarter, up from an upwardly revised 2.1% in the second, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Unit labor costs, what businesses pay workers to produce one unit of output, fell 0.7%, the first decline since the second quarter of 2025.
Hours worked rose 0.1% while hourly compensation rose an annualized 2.9%, or 1.1% after inflation.
The labor share of income, the portion of output that goes to workers, was 53%, the lowest in data back to 1947.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signaled the change in a filing with the Office of Management and Budget. The law requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions unless doing so causes undue hardship.
The agency plans to revise how it interprets “pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions.”
It has not said what the changes will be.
A judge vacated the rule’s requirement to accommodate elective abortions in May 2025.
The public comment period is expected to end in January.
At a high level, the rule fundamentally errs in conflating pregnancy and childbirth accommodation with accommodation of the female sex, that is, female biology and reproduction.”
Read more via HR Dive
Canada: The goods-trade surplus widened to C$5.35 billion in September, the largest since May 2022, helped by oil and gold exports. September was the first full month under new 50% U.S. tariffs on roughly 5% of Canadian exports, and Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem told lawmakers growth is likely to slow in the fourth quarter. (The Wall Street Journal)
France: Only 14% of adults say their local economy is getting better, while 73% say it is getting worse. For the first time on record, more than one in five (22%) say they have struggled to afford food. Confidence in the honesty of elections fell to 46%, the first time in two decades it has dropped below half. (Gallup)
Germany: Strikes spread across the metal and electrical engineering industry, with workers at Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Tata Steel walking out. IG Metall, the country’s largest industrial union, is demanding a 5% raise from November, protections for jobs and production sites, and profit sharing in strong sectors. The dispute covers 3.7 million employees. (Reuters)
Ireland: GDP grew 5.5% in the third quarter, after a 10% jump in the second quarter and a 7.8% contraction in the first. Information and communications, a category that includes AI-related activity, helped drive the gain. ECB economists regularly strip out Irish data when judging the eurozone’s underlying health, because it is so volatile. (The Wall Street Journal)
New Zealand: Unemployment rose to 5.7% in the September quarter from 5.6% in June, while the employment rate slipped to 66.4% from 66.7%. Underutilization was unchanged at 13.8%. Over the year, salary and wage rates rose 2.1%, and average ordinary time hourly earnings rose to $44.86 from $43.60. (Stats NZ)
