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Harris endures a ‘noisy’ jobs report after a chaotic October

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Harris endures a ‘noisy’ jobs report after a chaotic October

The US labor market added far fewer jobs than expected in October in a report that was disrupted by weather and worker strikes yet was nonetheless immediately seized upon as a campaign trail issue for the final days of the 2024 election season.

The White House and Kamala Harris allies focused on the “noisy” nature of the report after a month that featured two hurricanes and two major strikes.

Trump and his campaign meanwhile touted the low numbers but also continued to lob evidence-free charges that they were manipulated even as they painted a flattering picture for the former President’s campaign.

“You know these numbers were cooked just like all the other Harris-Biden numbers,” posted Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller six minutes after the number was released even as he also called the number itself a “disaster” for the Harris campaign. Trump himself added a few hours later that job growth under Biden “has never been real.”

The jobs report was the capstone of a week that saw economic data take a prominent spot in the 2024 campaign, including the news Wednesday that economic growth largely continued apace and a Thursday release that showed inflation continuing to match expectations.

Friday’s data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the labor market adding just 12,000 payrolls in October, far below the 100,000 that had been expected by economists. The data also showed the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1%.

Harris and her allies have been trying to downplay the number all week, with White House officials previously saying they expected a “noisy” number due to Hurricanes Helene and Milton as well as a short port strike and an ongoing labor stoppage at Boeing.

“Outside estimates suggest that strikes and weather-related events could collectively lower the change in the October payroll by as much as 100,000 jobs,” Jared Bernstein, the chair of President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Wednesday at a White House briefing.

But the final number still fell well below even the cautious advance estimates, leaving Harris allies scrambling to explain.

“The simplest way to describe it is that this was a shortened reporting period because we’re here talking about this on the first of the month,” acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su told Yahoo Finance Friday morning, noting that the October data is even more focused on the first half of the month when the disruptions were most pronounced.

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