White House blames jobs reports on hurricanes and labor strikes

The White House on Friday blamed the stall in job growth in October on the hurricanes and labor strikes in recent weeks.

The U.S. added 12,000 jobs and the jobless rate stayed flat at 4.1 percent in October, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department. That stall upends a string of strong economic data leading into Election Day.

Economists had been bracing for a drop in job gains in October, citing the ongoing walkout of more than 30,000 Boeing machinists and the impacts of hurricanes Helene and Milton as issues for job growth.

Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein on Friday attributed the jobs report to these “powerful forces.”

“We know that there were two powerful forces leading to negative and temporary impacts on payroll growth. Those were, of course, the hurricanes that really hit the southeastern United States, wide swaths therein, and the strikes,” Bernstein told CNBC. “And if you account for those factors, the underlying pace of payroll job growth is still healthy, probably in the 150,000 range. That’s enough to keep the unemployment rate steady.”

He noted that the 4.1 percent unemployment rate wasn’t impacted last month and touted other strong economic data released this week, like that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annualized rate of 2.8 percent between July and September.

“So take out the distortions, the temporary distortions from these two forces, the U.S. economy remains solid as ever,” he said.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also said Friday that the sharp decline in job gains was caused in part by “severe damage” from the hurricanes and their timing," though it acknowledged "it is not possible to quantify the net effect."

The GDP report was good news for Vice President Harris while she argues that there is a strong economy under the Biden administration, but also says that more work needs to be done.

But, the job growth stall in October has the potential to hurt her argument that the economic is improving, while Democrats have voiced frustrations that Harris’s economic message hasn’t broken through to voters.