Nonfarm payrolls are forecast to rise by 59,000 for October, reflecting only a modest uptick from the 29,000 positions added in September. The national unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 4.2% primarily because fewer available workers are needed to maintain employment stability. Even as job openings rose by 333,000 in September and layoffs stayed scarce, long-term unemployment expanded significantly over the past two years.
Key points
The contracting labor pool enables the national unemployment rate to stay low despite slu…: The contracting labor pool enables the national unemployment rate to stay low despite sluggish monthly payroll gains.
Reluctant employer hiring persists even while low weekly jobless claims and rising job op…: Reluctant employer hiring persists even while low weekly jobless claims and rising job openings indicate scarce layoffs.
Extended periods of joblessness are worsening for unemployed workers, with the average du…: Extended periods of joblessness are worsening for unemployed workers, with the average duration reaching 24.8 weeks.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
The U.S. economy isn't expected to have produced much job growth in October, with employers reluctant to hire workers but also not cutting staff amid a shrinking labor force and a growing problem of long-term unemployment.
Economists are looking for a meager nonfarm payrolls gain of 59,000, a slight uptick from the 29,000 jobs produced in September, according to the Dow Jones consensus. That result would continue a pattern of sparse growth.
But that's kind of OK: The forecast also is that the unemployment rate will hold at a very low 4.2% rate, the product of a climate where a stagnant labor force reduces the need for outsized job increases to keep the jobless level steady.
"Long-term, we're not going to need as many jobs added to the economy to have stable employment because we have fewer people who are available to work," said Nicole Bachaud, labor economist at jobs site ZipRecruiter. "An aging workforce is pushing a lot of people into retirement. We have had decades of low birth rates, meaning we don't have a lot of people who…
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