Former President Trump plans to take a final swipe at Vice President Kamala Harris over the latest jobs report on Friday.
Prepared remarks for Trump's upcoming rally in North Carolina later Saturday show him blaming Harris for tens of thousands of lost jobs. The report itself from the Department of Labor blames the losses on the fallout from hurricanes Helene and Milton.
"Yesterday, it was announced that our country lost nearly 30,000 private sector jobs last month alone, along with nearly 50,000 manufacturing jobs in a single month. They’re trying to blame the Hurricane for the jobs numbers—but it wasn’t Hurricane Helene, it was Hurricane Kamala," Trump is set to say.
"Under her catastrophic economic agenda, more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been wiped out since the start of this year. 150,000 Americans joined the unemployment rolls last month, and nearly a quarter of a million people dropped out of the labor force," the remarks continue.
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U.S. job growth slowed down in October, coming in well short of economists' expectations, while the unemployment rate was unchanged.
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The Labor Department on Friday reported that employers added 12,000 jobs in October, well below the 113,000 gain that was predicted by LSEG economists and the lowest tally since December 2020.
The unemployment rate was 4.1%, in line with expectations.
The number of jobs added in the prior two months were both revised downward, with job creation in August revised down by 81,000 from a gain of 159,000 to 78,000, while September was revised down by 31,000 from a gain of 254,000 to 223,000.
Private sector payrolls contracted by 28,000 in October after LSEG economists projected they would rise by 90,000.
The manufacturing sector saw employment decline by 46,000 jobs in October, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) noted was largely due to strike activity in the transportation equipment manufacturing sector. About 33,000 unionized machinists at Boeing have been on strike since early September.
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The construction sector added 8,000 jobs — below the average of 20,000 jobs per month in the past 12 months. Health care added 52,300 jobs in October, near its average monthly gain of 58,000 in the last year.
The government added 40,000 jobs in October, mostly in line with its average monthly gain of 43,000 over the past 12 months.
The BLS noted that Hurricane Helene made landfall in the southeast before the reference period for its employment surveys, while Hurricane Milton hit the same region during the report period.
Fox Business' Eric Revell contributed to this report
