ORLANDO, Fla. – According the U.S. Labor Department, America’s employers added just 12,000 jobs in October, but economists say that relatively low number was affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton, as well as labor strikes from companies like Boeing which left a lot of people off the payrolls.
CBS Business Analyst Jill Schlesinger says the overall job market is slowing, but wages are up, which is good news when it comes to lowering inflation.
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She spoke with News 6 anchor Lisa Bell, to break down the latest report.
Schlesinger: “Well, listen, that 12,000 number was actually impacted by some very significant events. The Boeing strike means that 33,000 machinists and probably another 10,000 other folks who work in associated businesses, that they are out of jobs, and also, don’t forget, we had two hurricanes. You know that specifically, and that could have also dented job growth. But you know, even if we take these numbers aside, we know that the labor market has been slowing down. In fact, we got revisions to the two previous months by 112,000 jobs less than we had expected or that were reported and that just means that, as we had seen the interest rates rise over the last couple of years, the Fed really wanted the labor market to slow down. It has slowed down. One good point in this report, though, is wages are up by 4%. That’s well ahead of the inflation rate. Remember, inflation is only running at, you know, basically two and a half to 3% so if wages are up by 4% — and that’s higher than the inflation rate — that really does help people cope in a higher price environment.”
Bell: “It’s always hard to figure out exactly what these numbers mean, because, as you just mentioned, inflation. That has been something we’ve been talking about for such a long time. Now we want some of these numbers to come down, because it could potentially help with inflation. So as we continue to head into fall and we get a clearer picture of the overall economy over the summer, what sort of grade would you give it?”
Schlesinger: “You know, it’s interesting, because the year started off with some weakness in the first quarter. Then, the second quarter, we saw big expansion, a 3% annualized pace in the second quarter, and just this week, we learned the economy actually grew again in the third quarter, 2.8% annualized pace. But you know, what’s fascinating is consumers really did spend a lot of money in the third quarter. So I know that everyone is really concerned about higher prices that are left over from that high inflation, but we seem to be absorbing it. The consumer spending has propelled growth and if I look at the entire year, and when I speak to economists, they believe that the US economy will expand by, let’s call it, two and a half to 2.7% this year, and that would be a very good result. It almost looks like we’re kind of beyond the COVID era when it comes to economic growth, meaning that the big contraction, coming back very strong, that we’re kind of putting that behind us and going back to where we were in the 10 years leading up to COVID, where we saw economic growth anywhere from two and a quarter to 3% each year. So, I think this is pretty good news. It’s pretty solid footing to be coming out of that crazy period in this way.”
Bell: “So, what I’m hearing is we are potentially becoming a bit more normal, which might be good news for us and we do know that consumer confidence, as you mentioned, is growing. So what exactly can we expect when it comes to spending and hiring as we head into the holiday season?”
Schlesinger: “Yeah. I mean, this is going to be interesting. I’ve spoken to a lot of business owners who really said they put a lot of their plans on ice until after the election, even though it seems silly, because so many of these businesses are not impacted by the election, right? But I think it’s just sort of that generalized anxiety, like ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen, I want to have some security. I just want to know who it is more important than anything.’ I think that we should expect that the labor market will continue to grow, though not by a lot, and we should see economic growth continue. You know, there’s a very interesting period that we’re entering into in that we’ve grown so much, you might say, ‘Well, we should kind of see a recession sometime soon,’ but I don’t see anything in the near term that would indicate that.”
Bell: “Maybe it’s that soft landing that we’ve all been talking about for such a long time, and we’ll just continue to be normal for several months. That would be lovely.”
You can catch Jill on “CBS Mornings” and “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.”
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