Hiring held last month, but caution increases

WASHINGTON » Defying fears of another slowdown, U.S. businesses kept hiring at a solid pace in October, yet there are signs they remain cautious about the economy’s future as the pandemic worsens.

The Labor Department said Friday that employers added 638,000 jobs and the unemployment rate tumbled a full percentage point to 6.9%, extending what has been a faster recovery than many economists expected in the spring.

But the pace of hiring isn’t robust enough to rapidly soak up the millions of Americans who were thrown out of work by the pandemic recession.

The job gains were l ittle changed from September’s 672,000 and less than half August’s 1.5 million. Yet the increase was stronger than it appears: It was held down by the loss of about 150,000 temporary Census jobs. Excluding governments at all levels, private businesses added a healthy 906,000 jobs. Hiring has held at that level for three months.

Overall, the latest jobs report suggests the tentative recovery remains intact, for now, and that the economy is continuing to adapt to the pandemic.

“It was a pleasant surprise to see that the pace of the recovery hasn’t slowed down,” said Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed, the job search website. “But we all need to keep in mind the huge hole that we’re in, in terms of jobs and unemployment.”

Hiring rose in retail, including in online retail, where many Americans have turned during the viral outbreak. Warehousing and courier services have both added jobs in every month since the pandemic, including last month.

But in a sign of the uncertainty clouding the economy as the virus surges, companies also added more than 100,000 temporary workers. That suggests they are seeing more demand from customers but aren’t sure how long it will last and are reluctant to make permanent job offers.

The length of the average work week also rose, evidence that employers pushed their current staff to work more rather than take on new workers.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Wall Street economists have urged Congress to approve more government aid to support families and businesses, particularly as the pandemic rages and colder weather threatens recent hiring gains among restaurants and bars, which had been able to serve customers outdoors.

But the prospects for more stimulus have been scrambled by the election, which appears likely to result in a victory for former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrat, while possibly preserving a Republican majority in the Senate. That could mean any additional aid will be postponed until at least next year.

On Thursday, the nation broke another record in the seven-day rolling average for new cases, hitting nearly 90,000. Daily new cases were also on track to top 100,000 again, with surging numbers reported all around the country, including a combined nearly 25,000 in Texas, Illinois and Florida.

The nation still has 10.1 million fewer jobs than it did before the viral outbreak intensified in March.

At the current pace of hiring, it would take until February 2022 to regain all those jobs. Still, that would be faster than the 20082009 Great Recession, when it took more than five years to recover the jobs lost.

LM OTERO — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE A customer wears a face mask as they carry their order past a now hiring sign on Sept. 2, in Richardson, Texas. On Thursday, Nov. 5, the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell slightly last week to 751,000, a still-historically high level that shows that many employers keep cutting jobs in the face of the accelerating pandemic.