Republicans did a bad job of communicating how well the economy is doing. The jobs report for October is confirmation that it is pretty strong and producing lots of good jobs at higher wages. According to the business survey, 165,000 jobs were added, far more than expected, and August employment was revised up by 53,000 and September by 31,000. The best news is that almost all the job additions were in the private sector. The household survey was even stronger, with 463,000 more people reporting working. There was a very large increase in full-time jobs with a reduction in part-time ones. If accurate, this suggests that employers perceive strong demand and are adding employees and converting part-time work to full-time. We did experience a significant increase in foreign-born workers, after months of dropping numbers in that category.
There is no sign of an AI job destruction, on the contrary, business and professional services had a 70,000 increase. Professional and technical jobs were up as were manufacturing jobs. The last few months have seen steady increases in manufacturing jobs. Hourly earnings rose at a pace above inflation, but just barely. So no reason to fear a major economic slowdown until the Democrat party policies kick in after the recent election gains. (BLS Report)
