The world’s largest economy added just 12,000 jobs last month, well below expectations and down from September’s revised 223,000, the Labor Department said. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.1 percent.

Hiring and unemployment data will be scrutinized by the teams of both presidential candidates, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, but the employment numbers would have been higher without the devastating hurricanes and labor strikes. workers.

Unusually weak hiring numbers threaten to affect how Americans view the job market, some analysts warn.

The collective impact of Hurricanes Helen and Milton, along with work stoppages by Boeing workers and others, could reduce job growth by up to 100,000 positions, Council President Jared Bernstein said earlier economic advisors.

But the latest figure remains significantly below the market consensus estimate of 120,000.

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This is the slowest hiring rate since late 2020 and since President Joe Biden took office.

“Job growth is expected to rebound in November as our hurricane recovery and rebuilding efforts continue,” Biden said Friday, also highlighting a new contract proposal for striking Boeing workers.

But Trump called the report “very embarrassing,” blaming Harris for the decline in manufacturing employment, even though it has been hit hard by strikes.

The average hourly wage rose 0.4 percent from September, slightly above expectations.

The Labor Department said its survey “is not designed to isolate the effects of extreme weather events.”

But he adds: “It is likely that wage employment estimates in some sectors were affected by the hurricanes.”

The report also said manufacturing employment fell by 46,000, following a decline of 44,000 in transportation equipment manufacturing, largely due to strikes.

In addition to the approximately 33,000 Boeing workers on strike, 5,000 Textron Aviation machinists and 3,400 hotel workers were also on strike, noted Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY.

In the employment survey that tracks hiring, workers on strike during the entire reference pay period are not counted as employees, Boussour added.

At the same time, Hurricane Helene made landfall in late September, meaning some people were likely unable to return to work by the time the survey was conducted.

Likewise, the week of the survey coincided with the arrival of Hurricane Milton.

Economists Carl Weinberg and Rubeela Farooqi of High Frequency Economics suggested treating the hiring component of the report “as an unreliable indicator” of true market conditions.

A lower hiring figure “will probably weigh on how people perceive the economic situation”, Farooqi told AFP.

More broadly, “households are not feeling the benefits of a still solid labor market,” she added, pointing to cumulative inflation.

But economist Harry Holzer, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, expects the public to already expect lower numbers this time around.

A more serious problem would be a sharp slowdown after accounting for temporary factors.

“Rising incomes are keeping consumers’ wallets open. Any disruption to this would suggest the economy’s growth engine is starting to falter,” said Oren Klachkin, an economist at Nationwide.

“The job market is cooling but I wouldn’t say it’s cold,” he said.

Strikes and hurricanes only partially explain the weakness, warned economist Samuel Tombs of Pantheon MacroEconomics.

Wages outside of temporary aid or leisure and hospitality – generally hit hard by hurricanes – as well as in transportation equipment manufacturing, saw only half their average increase over the previous 12 months, he said. declared.

There has been no impact on the unemployment rate because people on strike or unable to work due to weather conditions are still considered employed, he said.

But the survey that followed that showed a drop of 368,000 jobs, added Mike Fratantoni, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Although there have not been mass layoffs, there has been a continued reduction in job offers, he added.

Analysts expect the Fed to cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point next week, rather than not cutting them at all.

“Fed officials will likely look at the noisy payroll numbers,” Boussour said.