US employers continued to hire briskly in October, adding a substantial 261,000 jobs, a sign that as Election Day approaches, the economy continues to show strong job growth and painful inflation.
Friday’s government report showed hiring last month remained close to the solid pace it has maintained in the more than two years since the pandemic recession ended. The unemployment rate rose to 3.7% from a five-decade low of 3.5%.
A strong labor market is deepening the challenges facing the Federal Reserve as it raises interest rates at the fastest pace since the 1980s to try to reduce inflation from a nearly 40-year high. Steady hiring, strong wage growth and a low unemployment rate have been good for workers. But they have also contributed to rising prices.
The October jobs numbers were the last major economic report before Election Day, with voters heavily focused on the state of the economy and their own financial lives.
Chronic inflation is hitting the budgets of many households and has spiked to the top of voter concerns in midterm legislative elections due to end Tuesday. Republican candidates across the country have attacked Democrats for inflation as they seek to regain control of Congress.
All the jobs employers have added since the recession ended have boosted consumers’ ability to keep spending, even amid high inflation. Labor shortages in many areas of the economy have also forced businesses to pay more to attract and keep workers.
President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have pointed to the brisk resurgence in hiring as evidence that his policies have helped get Americans back to work faster than the nation managed after previous recessions. But that message has been overtaken in the midterm political campaigns by the crushing rise in inflation, which has soured many Americans on the economy under Democratic leadership in Congress and the White House.
There are growing signs that the economy has begun to falter under the weight of much higher borrowing costs brought on by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes. Especially in industries like housing and technology, hiring is down. Some tech companies, including ride-hailing company Lyft and payment company Stripe, have announced plans to lay off workers. Amazon said on Thursday that it would suspend its corporate hiring.
[Con información de The Associated Press]
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