Hiring Rebounded in October, but Long-Term Unemployment and Cut Hours Tell a Harder Story
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Employers added 165,000 jobs in October, more than 3 times the average monthly gain of 48,000 over the prior 12 months. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.1% from 4.2% in September, and the number of unemployed people fell 41,000 to 7.07 million. The rate peaked at 4.5% in November 2025 and is back to where it was in October 2024, although it is still above the 3.6% of October 2022.
The two months before October improved as well. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revised August up 53,000 to 186,000 and September up 31,000 to 60,000, so those 2 months added 84,000 more jobs than first reported. I covered the original September figure of 29,000 in my September jobs report analysis.
Professional and business services led with 70,000 jobs, against a typical month of 15,000 over the past year. Temporary help services added 18,600 after losing 5,600 in September. Health care added 42,000, transportation and warehousing added 25,000, and manufacturing added 19,000. Leisure and hospitality lost 13,000 jobs. Average hourly pay rose 14 cents to $38.00, a 0.4% gain in one month and 3.1% over the past year.
Job openings show slow improvement too. The latest JOLTS report showed 7.5 million openings in September against 7.1 million unemployed people, or 1.06 openings for every person looking for work. A year earlier, there were 0.94.
Beneath those totals, 3 numbers show a harder market for millions of Americans.
- Long-term unemployment. The number of people unemployed 27 weeks or longer reached 1.96 million in October, or 27.6% of everyone unemployed. The share was 22.8% in October 2024 and 20.5% in October 2023.
- Hours cut. The number of people working part time because of slack work or business conditions rose 356,000 in October to 3.25 million, up from 2.54 million in October 2022. BLS’s wider measure, part-time for economic reasons, rose 339,000 to 4.8 million. The slack-work count swings from month to month and reached 3.45 million in November 2025, so I would treat October’s jump as one month of data.
- Multiple jobholders. 8.81 million people hold more than one job, about 1.3 million more than in October 2022. The count fell 181,000 in October, so this trend has built over several years and did not jump last month.
BLS updated its population controls in January 2026 and did not collect household data for October 2025 because of the federal shutdown, so these multi-year comparisons are not exact. The direction holds either way.
I’ll take 165,000, and I’ll take it most happily in professional and business services. Those are the accounting, IT, engineering, and administrative roles companies have been sitting on all year. My read is that hiring managers finally got approval to fill some of those openings.
The temp help number is the one I watch most closely. Companies usually bring in contract workers before they commit to permanent headcount, so 18,600 added after a September decline tells me employers are adding people faster than they’re ready to put them on payroll. If you need that kind of flexibility, our staffing services cover contract and temporary roles.
The overall numbers are better than a year ago. Unemployment is down from its 4.5% peak last November, and there is roughly 1 opening for every unemployed person again. The averages hide a different experience for a lot of people, though. If you lose a job, it takes longer to find the next one. If you keep your job, you may get fewer hours. Either way, more people are picking up a second job to cover the difference.
Companies are hiring for specific roles and trimming hours everywhere else, and a 4.1% unemployment rate does not show how hard it is to get back in once you’re out. I saw the same cautious pattern in this week’s ADP report and in Thursday’s jobless claims, where layoffs stayed near a 57-year low while continuing claims rose.
For job seekers, the market is improving, and you still need a sharper resume and a direct referral to get noticed. For employers, the candidates you passed on in the spring are getting calls now, so move faster on the ones you want, and think twice before you pass on a resume with a long gap. Talk to us about hiring if you want a faster process.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
Reach out and see how we can help.
Small Business Owners Report Few Qualified Applicants, While 1.96 Million Americans Have Been Unemployed 6 Months or Longer
NFIB’s October jobs report, based on 759 member firms surveyed through October 29, found that 56% of small business owners hired or tried to hire, up 5 points from September. A net 18% plan to create new jobs in the next 3 months, up 1 point. The Small Business Employment Index rose 0.2 points to 100.8, below its 2025 average of 101.2 and above its historical average of 100.0.
Finding the right people is still the hard part. 36% of owners had job openings they could not fill, up 4 points from September and 12 points above the historical average. 31% had openings for skilled workers, and 15% had openings for unskilled labor. Those two groups overlap, so they do not add up to 36%.
48% of owners said they got few or no qualified applicants for their open positions, up 3 points. Among owners who were hiring or trying to hire, that is 86%. 28% said they got few qualified applicants, and 20% said they got none. A quarter of owners, 25%, named the quality or availability of labor as their top operating problem, down 1 point from September and 13 points above the historical average of 12%. NFIB changed that answer from “quality of labor” in June, so the comparison spans a wording change. Only 7% named labor costs.
Pay is rising too. A net 29% of owners raised compensation in October, and a net 24% plan to raise it in the next 3 months, up 4 points and the highest since December 2025. NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg said the desire to create jobs and raise wages is there, “but the challenge of finding qualified workers remains a persistent barrier for Main Street.” A member in California put it this way: “The availability of tradesmen is a huge problem for business growth.” NFIB says BLS monthly job growth is low, and that Main Street would see it higher if more quality workers were available.
When 86% of hiring small business owners say they cannot find qualified applicants, I read it as a matching problem. This morning’s BLS report counted 1.96 million Americans who have been out of work 27 weeks or longer, and 3.25 million working part time because of slack work or business conditions. Plenty of people want work, and small businesses say they cannot find the ones who match what they need.
Some of that gap is skills. 31% of owners have openings for skilled workers, and the NFIB member comments read like a list of trades. Some of it is how small businesses hire. Many small companies have no dedicated recruiter, so the owner reads resumes after hours and rules people out fast, and a candidate with a long gap or a career change rarely gets a call. The second point is my read of how small business hiring works, and NFIB’s data does not measure it.
The pay numbers tell me owners know they have to pay more to compete. A net 24% plan raises in the next 3 months, the most since last December, while only 7% call labor costs their top problem. Owners worry more about finding people than paying them.
If you’re a small business owner with an opening sitting for months, look harder at the people you’ve been screening out. A candidate who is 80% of the way there and wants the job will often beat waiting another quarter for the perfect fit. If you’d rather not screen alone, explore our staffing services.
