Hiring.
(Image credit: John Smith/VIEWpress)

The U.S. added 261,000 jobs in October, "its fewest since December 2020," The Wall Street Journal reports Friday, per the U.S. Labor Department. The unemployment rate also rose to 3.7 percent.

The October report managed to demonstrate the economy's overall resilience, with jobs gains nonetheless beating economists' expectations despite the Federal Reserve's inflation-fighting interest rate hikes, The New York Times notes. The numbers also afforded voters' a "final glimpse" at the economy before next week's midterm elections, and "will almost certainly make [their] way into both parties' closing pitches ... ."

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"Even though the labor market is strong, this means that a recession is more likely rather than less because it means the Fed is going to end up raising rates even more," Faucher told the Journal.

"What I see in this [report] is the imprint of beginning weakness," Diane Swonk of KPMG, told the Times. "But it's not enough to derail the Fed."

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.