October Hiring Beat Forecasts, but the Broader Jobless Rate Rose to 7.9%: What the Jobs Report Means if You're Job Hunting

The headline numbers looked strong on Friday, but the details show a job market that is working better for some people than for others.

Is the job market getting easier for job seekers?

For many people, yes, but not for everyone. Employers added 165,000 jobs in October and the unemployment rate dipped to 4.1%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Nov. 6. At the same time, the number of people stuck in part-time work rose by 339,000, and a broader measure of joblessness climbed to 7.9%.

The BLS released the report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had expected only 65,000 new jobs, Reuters reported. Over the previous 12 months, payrolls had grown by an average of just 48,000 a month, so October was a clear step up. The BLS also revised August and September higher by a combined 84,000 jobs.

Where were the jobs in October?

Most of the gains came from a handful of industries. Professional and business services added 70,000 jobs. Health care added 42,000, including 16,000 at hospitals, 11,000 in home health care and 5,000 in outpatient care. Transportation and warehousing added 25,000, led by 17,000 jobs at couriers and messengers. Manufacturing added 19,000, with computer and electronic products up 7,000.

The BLS said the other major industries showed little change over the month. That matters if you're searching in retail, finance, government or leisure and hospitality. A strong national number doesn't mean employers in your field are suddenly hiring faster.

The courier and warehouse gains also line up with the season. Retailers and delivery companies tend to staff up before the holidays. As we noted in our look at October's layoff and hiring-plan data, many of those holiday roles come with an end date.

Why did the broader unemployment rate go up?

The official unemployment rate only counts people with no job who are actively looking. The BLS also publishes a wider gauge, called U-6, that adds people working part time who want full-time hours and people who want a job but have stopped looking recently. U-6 rose to 7.9% in October from 7.6% in September, according to BLS Table A-15.

The main driver was part-time work. The number of people working part time "for economic reasons," meaning their hours were cut or they couldn't find a full-time job, jumped by 339,000 to 4.8 million. Put simply, more people are working, but more of them are not getting the hours they want.

Long job searches are also common. About 2.0 million people had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more, which is 27.6% of everyone who was unemployed, the BLS said. That share changed little from September. Another 448,000 people were counted as discouraged workers, meaning they had stopped looking because they believed no jobs were available for them.

Are paychecks keeping up with prices?

Not quite, on average. Average hourly earnings rose 14 cents in October to $38.00 and were up 3.1% from a year earlier. Consumer prices, though, were up 3.7% over the 12 months ending in September, according to the BLS consumer price index report. We covered that inflation reading in our September CPI story. The October CPI is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 10.

Here's what that gap looks like in dollars. If you earned $50,000 a year ago and got a 3.1% raise, you'd now earn $51,550, or $1,550 more. Keeping exactly even with 3.7% inflation would have taken $51,850. That's a $300 shortfall in buying power over a year. These are averages for different months, so your own raise and your own costs could be higher or lower.

The average private-sector workweek held at 34.4 hours. For production and nonsupervisory workers, it slipped by 0.1 hour to 33.8 hours. Shorter weeks can trim take-home pay even when the hourly rate rises.

What this means for your wallet

If you're looking for work, the report suggests employers are hiring again, but unevenly. Health care, business services, delivery and some manufacturing were adding jobs in October. If your experience overlaps with those fields, it may be worth widening your search to include them. Our guide to September's job openings showed openings rising before this report, which points the same way.

If you're working part time and want more hours, you're far from alone. Some people compare the true hourly value of a full-time offer, including benefits, against part-time work plus a side gig. Our step-by-step guide to converting salary to hourly pay can help with that math.

If you have a job and are heading into a review, the 3.1% average raise and 3.7% inflation figures are useful context. They give you real numbers to bring to a conversation about pay. Our guide on how to negotiate a job offer covers how to ask without putting an offer at risk.

If your search has run past six months, the data shows it isn't just you. More than one in four unemployed people had been looking for at least 27 weeks. Check whether you qualify for state benefits, which our explainer on unemployment benefits walks through.

What's next for the job market?

The November jobs report is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 4, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, the BLS said. After Friday's report, traders raised their bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike in December, as we covered in our markets story on the report. A hike could make borrowing more expensive, which is worth keeping in mind if you're carrying credit card debt while job hunting.