The Employment Situation for November 2024

‍Editor's Note: This report is based on survey data from October 2024 that was published in November 2024. This is the most recent data available. (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

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The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1% for the second straight month, while US employers added around 12 thousand jobs, which was about 90% below growth estimates.

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Not only was the labor market essentially unchanged over the month, there also wasn’t much noteworthy change over the year in terms of the unemployment rate, which rose just three-tenths of a percent from 3.8% over the last 12 months.

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The number of people who qualify as long-term unemployed after remaining jobless for at least 27 weeks also showed little movement at about 1.6 million people, as did the number of people not currently in the labor force but want a job despite not actively looking for one (7.3 million). 

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To be clear, however, while most of these metrics were fairly consistent from month to month, seeing the number of new payroll entries fall so far beneath the predicted levels does represent a significant departure from the norm in recent years.

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Still, the vast majority of industries recorded little to no meaningful change in payroll entries over the month, including construction, natural resource extraction, wholesale, retail, information services, transportation & warehousing, and leisure & hospitality. 

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The healthcare industry saw the largest number of new jobs last month at 52 thousand, which is just below the average monthly growth recorded in the healthcare industry over the past 12 months. 

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The government sector recorded an increase of about 40 thousand jobs last month, as well, which was similarly in line with the monthly average of about 43 thousand.

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The number of temporary employees and manufacturing employees, however, declined by about 50 thousand each over the course of October, with manufacturing strikes playing a significant role in the latter reduction.

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Meanwhile, the average workweek was essentially unchanged at 34.3 hours per week while average hourly pay spiked 13 cents for the second straight month based on initially-reported figures, rising to $35.46 per hour and representing a 0.4% increase over the month before.

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Mployer’s Take

From one perspective, this report looks like the picture of stability - with practically no perceptible change to either the unemployment rate or the payroll figures. Taking that angle, this report may represent a reversion to the mean after a couple of years when the market has been particularly hot, but it is generally indicative of business as usual.

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From another perspective, this report looks like the job growth figures just fell off of a cliff, coming up about 100 thousand jobs short of forecasts and almost 200 thousand short of average monthly job growth over the past year. This vantage point might suggest that recession is imminent.

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The reality is that this report largely represents an incomplete picture and may in fact not be a fair reflection of the current state of the labor market. Factors such as Hurricane Milton, Hurricane Helen, and the Boeing strike among others have potentially skewed the jobs data via disruptions not only in the ability of companies to conduct businesses, service customers, and hire employees according to demand, but there have also been disruptions in the data collection process that could be influencing the report, as well. 

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That said, the job numbers from the last couple of months were also revised downward in the latest report by more than 100 thousand collectively, the unemployment rate was stabilized in part by job-seekers at least temporarily abandoning the job hunt, and the data collection period was still within statistically acceptable ranges despite being cut short.

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Put more succinctly, hurricanes and strikes significantly impacted the latest employment release, but the softening we may be seeing in the job market may go beyond those impacts alone. 

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For one, the upcoming elections and the uncertainty surrounding the distribution of power among state and federal offices alike may well be influencing business decisions in the short term before some of those uncertainties are resolved.

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In any case, both hurricane season and election season will be over in a matter of weeks and we’ll get a better look at how the markets and economy are likely to respond heading into the new year.

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Check out the Mployer blog here.