Despite growing waves of layoffs, the data signals the labor market may still not be cooling quickly enough for the Fed to ease up on interest rate hikes.
Though the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.7%, the labor market last month added a much stronger-than-expected 261,000 jobs—signaling that the labor market, which has remained one of the economy’s strongest pillars during the pandemic recovery, may still not be cooling quickly enough for the Federal Reserve to ease up on interest rate hikes despite growing waves of layoffs.
Job gains in October were roughly flat from 263,000 in September but much better than the 205,000 new jobs economists were expecting, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department.
