Labor

If you’re looking for work, the headline isn’t your number. October added a hundred sixty-five thousand jobs. Your number is how long the search takes. It just hit its longest since twenty twenty-one.

The strong case first. It’s real. August and September were revised up eighty-four thousand, and the three-month average jumped to a hundred thirty-seven thousand a month, from twenty-eight.

Last month we showed the summer revised to fifty-one thousand a month. It’s back to sixty-nine.

Who hired: business services, health care, delivery and factories. Professional and technical work, among the best-paying jobs, added thirty-three thousand; temp help, nineteen. And over the year, information and finance, both well-paid, are down more than two hundred thousand.

The typical stretch of unemployment is almost twelve weeks, up from ten last fall. More than one in four unemployed people have been looking for over six months. Both are the highest since twenty twenty-one.

People stuck part-time who want full-time work jumped three hundred thirty-nine thousand. It’s a noisy series, so read the year: up about a quarter million.

The steady part: among twenty-five to fifty-four year-olds, the share working or looking is level with a year ago, and above twenty nineteen.

One more trend. Over the past year, women took nearly seven in ten new jobs, and they’ve held over half of all payroll jobs for nine straight months. More than eight in ten of their gains came from health care and social assistance.

It isn’t new. In five months since December, men’s jobs were down over the year while total jobs grew. That’s happened in ten earlier stretches since nineteen sixty-four. Some came as recessions took hold: nineteen ninety, two thousand one, two thousand seven. Others came in recoveries, like nineteen ninety-two. It tells you which sectors are hiring, not what comes next.

So, strong or stable? Adding jobs: stronger. Absorbing the unemployed: not yet. For the Fed, firmer hiring takes away a reason to ease. Pay rose three point one percent. September was revised up, so last month’s third slowdown is gone. Still no pressure to tighten. The two-year rose five basis points on the day.

Watch how long the search takes. November’s report lands December fourth, five days before the Fed decides.

Two words keep getting used for the job market: strong, and stable. For the Fed, they’re not the same. Today’s job openings report can tell them apart.

In a strong labor market, workers move. They quit, get hired elsewhere, and get raises doing it. That pushes wages, and wages feed the prices the Fed is fighting. A stable market holds its jobs without much movement.

September made the strong case. Quits rose to two point one percent — the highest since June of last year. Openings, seven and a half million. Hiring, three point four percent. Layoffs, one percent.

Last month we said watch the layoff line, and showed you August at one point six four million, the fewest since March of last year. It was revised up to one point seven seven. September landed at one point six four again.

Now look at where the movement happened. Restaurants and hotels. Six of every ten new quits came from there — and more than all of the hiring gain. Everywhere else, hiring dipped.

One month is noisy, so read three. Hiring, July through September: five point two seven million a month. April through June: the same.

Hold it against twenty nineteen, when the Fed called the labor market strong. Openings match it. Layoffs are lower. But the movement isn’t there: hiring three point four against three point nine, quits two point one against two point three. And just over one opening per unemployed person, against one point two.

As our PCE read noted, the Fed upgraded the economy to strong. Its jobs sentence stayed put: job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little. That’s stable.

The honest other half: outside restaurants and hotels, quits rose too, to the most since March of last year. Still below twenty nineteen. And that’s the line where strong shows up first.

So, does this report defend strong? On the surface, it’s the best case in months. Underneath, it’s stable — one sector churning, hiring flat, movement below twenty nineteen. Our claims read’s answer holds: labor gives the Fed no reason to ease, and no pressure to tighten.

Watch quits outside restaurants and hotels. October’s jobs report lands Friday. The next openings report, December first.

A hundred eighty-nine thousand new jobless filings. The four-week average, the lowest since September nineteen sixty-nine. That was Thursday morning. By the close, stocks had sold off hard and the bond market had moved toward a softer Fed. So is the layoff gauge missing something?

The week fell six thousand, matching July’s low. The average fell for a third straight week, and last week’s record moved a month further back. All of it out of more than twice the workers of nineteen sixty-nine.

Now the collecting count. Last week we told you it had fallen below where its jump started. Revision made that fall twenty-seven thousand. Then this week it rose twenty-three thousand, to one million seven hundred eighteen thousand. Back above.

Up nineteen, down twenty-seven, up twenty-three. Its four-week average has stayed inside a band of thirty-five hundred people for five weeks. And the share of covered workers drawing benefits: one point one percent, unchanged.

The level check we run every week. Filings average: about thirty-one thousand below a year ago. The collecting count: two hundred forty-four thousand below. The share drawing: one point one, against one point three.

What this doesn’t tell you: filings count layoffs, not hiring. Tuesday’s openings read found hiring flat, and called the job market stable, not strong. Quiet filings fit that. They don’t upgrade it.

Now the market. The two-year, the yield that tracks the Fed’s path, closed Thursday at four forty-six, down twelve basis points. That’s twenty-one below where it sat before September’s hike, and still forty-six above the top of the Fed’s range. That isn’t a market pricing cuts. It’s a market backing away from a second hike.

Did this report give it a reason? On layoffs, no. We don’t see a slowdown in these numbers. On this report, last week’s answer holds: labor gives the Fed no reason to ease, and no pressure to tighten.

Two limits. This report’s window closed October thirty-first, so it can’t see Thursday. And claims are a slow witness: layoffs follow a slowdown, they don’t announce one. Whatever moved Thursday’s market, it isn’t in these numbers.

October’s jobs report is out, and it gets its own read. Next claims: Thursday, November twelfth.