The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that were 261,000 jobs created in October, which was just above expectations of 200,000, but the smallest gain of the last 6 months. There was also 29,000 in positive revisions to August and September. While this figure seemed strong, it’s not what it seems. Almost 500k job creations came from the birth/death ratio, which uses modeling around the creation and death of businesses, and can be quite volatile and miss the mark. When looking at the household survey, there were significant job losses, most of which came from your typical higher wage earners in the 45-54 age group. The Unemployment Rate increased from 3.5% to 3.7%, which was higher than expectations of 3.6%. The unemployment rate comes from the household survey, which has its own job creations component. This report showed 328,000 job losses, while the labor force decreased by 22,000. Because the job losses far outweighed those leaving the labor force, the unemployment rate increase 0.2%. The labor force participation rate decreased 0.1% to 62.2%. The 3.5% unemployment rate is the U-3, which is what most people look at, and it removes individuals who are not actively searching for a job - There are around 5.7 million people that are not being counted that “want a job” but have not looked in the last four weeks. The U-6 all-in unemployment rate, which adds back all these individuals, increased from 6.7% to 6.8%. Average hourly earnings were up 0.4% in October and are up 4.7% year over year, which is the lowest level in quite some time and shows less wage pressured inflation. Average weekly earnings were up 0.4% from the previous month and are up 3.8% year over year.