WASHINGTON — October brought a stronger month for hiring. Payrolls grew by 165,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, and unemployment stayed at 4.1 percent.
Recent months had been much quieter, averaging 48,000 new jobs a month over the prior year. Some 7.1 million people were unemployed, little changed over the month, and the jobless rate has sat between 4.1 percent and 4.3 percent every month since March.
Where the jobs were added
Offices did most of the hiring. Professional and business services alone added 70,000 jobs in October. Over the prior year, the industry had been adding only about 15,000 a month. The biggest piece was professional, scientific and technical services, up 33,000. Administrative and support services rose by 28,000, and management of companies by 9,000. Since hitting a low last October, the sector has added 269,000 jobs.
Health care added 42,000 jobs. Its recent pace had been slower, about 31,000 a month over the prior year. Hospitals accounted for 16,000 of the new jobs. Home health care services added 11,000, outpatient care centers 5,000.
Delivery work picked up, too. Transportation and warehousing added 25,000 jobs, 17,000 of them couriers and messengers. Air transportation added 4,000. The industry is up 104,000 jobs since a low in February, and couriers and messengers account for 71,000 of that rise.
Factories hired as well. Manufacturing added 19,000 jobs in October and is up 101,000 since December 2025. Makers of computers and electronic products added 7,000 jobs. Machinery makers and primary metal producers added 4,000 each.
Most other big industries barely moved, among them mining, construction, wholesale and retail trade, information, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and government.
Pay and hours
Paychecks grew a little. Average hourly earnings on private payrolls rose 14 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $38.00, and were 3.1 percent higher than a year earlier. Pay for production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 12 cents to $32.75.
The average workweek held at 34.4 hours. Factory employees worked 40.5 hours, unchanged, with overtime up a tenth of an hour to 3.1 hours. For production and nonsupervisory employees, the week shortened a bit, to 33.8 hours.
More from the household survey
For the main worker groups, unemployment hardly shifted. Adult men were at 3.9 percent and adult women at 3.6 percent. For teenagers, the rate was 13.9 percent. White workers had a rate of 3.7 percent and Black workers 6.6 percent. Asian workers were at 2.8 percent, Hispanic workers at 4.7 percent.
There was little movement in long-term unemployment. People out of work for 27 weeks or longer numbered about 2.0 million. That is 27.6 percent of all the unemployed. Participation in the labor force stood at 61.9 percent, and 59.3 percent of the population had jobs.
More people were stuck in part-time work. That group, people working part time for economic reasons, grew by 339,000 to 4.8 million. They wanted full-time work, but their hours had been reduced or full-time jobs were not there. And 6.0 million people who are not in the labor force said they currently want a job. Marginally attached workers numbered 1.6 million of them. Discouraged workers, who believe no jobs are available for them, numbered 448,000.
Earlier months revised higher
The bureau also marked up its earlier counts. August’s gain was lifted by 53,000, to 186,000, and September’s by 31,000, to 60,000. All told, the two months produced 84,000 more jobs than first counted.
The November report is due Friday, Dec. 4, at 8:30 a.m. ET.
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