The US labor market added far fewer jobs than expected in October in a report that was disrupted by weather and worker strikes yet was nonetheless immediately seized upon as a campaign trail issue for the final days of the 2024 election season.
The White House and Kamala Harris allies focused on the “noisy” nature of the report after a month that featured two hurricanes and two major strikes.
Trump and his campaign meanwhile touted the low numbers but also continued to lob evidence-free charges that they were manipulated even as they painted a flattering picture for the former president’s campaign.
“You know these numbers were cooked just like all the other Harris-Biden numbers,” posted Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller six minutes after the number was released even as he also called the number itself a “disaster” for the Harris campaign. Trump himself added a few hours later that job growth under Biden “has never been real.”
The jobs report was the capstone of a week that saw economic data take a prominent spot in the 2024 campaign, including the news Wednesday that economic growth largely continued apace and a Thursday release that showed inflation continuing to match expectations.
Friday’s data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the labor market added just 12,000 payrolls in October, far below the 100,000 jobs added expected by economists. The data also showed the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1%.
Harris and her allies have been trying to downplay the number all week, with White House officials previously saying they expected a “noisy” number due to Hurricanes Helene and Milton as well as a short port strike and an ongoing labor stoppage at Boeing.
“Outside estimates suggest that strikes and weather-related events could collectively lower the change in the October payroll by as much as 100,000 jobs,” Jared Bernstein, the chair of President Joe Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Wednesday at a White House briefing.
But the final number still fell well below even the cautious advance estimates, leaving Harris allies scrambling to explain.
“The simplest way to describe it is that this was a shortened reporting period because we’re here talking about this on the first of the month,” acting US Labor Secretary Julie Su told Yahoo Finance Friday morning, noting that the October data is even more focused on the first half of the month when the disruptions were most pronounced.
“Job growth is expected to rebound in November as our hurricane recovery and rebuilding efforts continue,” President Joe Biden added in his own statement.
One consolation for the Harris campaign is that Friday’s number still showed job growth and confirmed that the economy has now gained jobs every single month Biden has been in office so far.
Indeed, many economic observers tended to dismiss the numbers and suggest it wouldn’t derail underlying trends.
“We’re in a pretty good place right now in the economy,” RSM chief economist Joe Brusuelas told Yahoo Finance immediately after the number was released. “This particular set of data is not going to derail that, nor will it derail our financial markets.”
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, added online that the number was a “head fake” and said “it is fair to say the job market remains rock-solid.”
For Trump’s campaign, the numbers were both a cause for celebration and another opportunity to put forth baseless claims that the officials at the Bureau of Labor Statistics are altering their survey results.
In a statement on various issues Friday afternoon, Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt charged that the Harris-Biden administration “lied about jobs numbers.”
And earlier this week, Trump claimed at a press conference that “it’s like a fake economy” as he continued his longtime strategy of taking personal credit for good economic data but calling other inconvenient points false.
“I know for a fact they’re not adding all of the numbers,” he said.
Right-wing skepticism of job numbers, in particular, has been heightened following a routine August revision that revealed the US economy employed 818,000 fewer people than originally reported.
The revisions nonetheless still showed the Biden-Harris administration has overseen job growth, but Trump and his allies seized upon the revelation that the increase was less than known previously.
The former president claimed that those revisions had been due to a “leaker” even as they were part of routine revisions that happen every year and were announced in a press release.
On Friday, Trump and his allies appeared to try and have it both ways, with some mentioning the baseless fraud charges but many others simply taking the challenging numbers for Harris at face value and trying to keep the focus there.
“The estimate was 120K for October, so this number (12K) is devastatingly bad,” added Trump senior adviser Tim Murtaugh in his own reaction.
This post has been updated with additional reactions.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
Every Friday, Yahoo Finance’s Rachelle Akuffo, Rick Newman, and Ben Werschkul bring you a unique look at how U.S. policy and government affects your bottom line on Capitol Gains. Watch or listen to Capitol Gains on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow’s stock prices
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance