By Dan Burns
November 6 (Reuters) – The U.S. economy created 165,000 jobs in October, 100,000 more than economists expected, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 4.1%, amid “fairly widespread improvement in the labor market.”
Here’s a look at four notable data points from the Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
FOREIGN-BORN WORKERS IN PRINCIPLE OF EARNINGS
The U.S. labor force contracted significantly during President Donald Trump’s first year back in office, and economists have linked the mass exodus of foreign-born workers that led to that decline to Trump’s immigration crackdown. Recently, the situation has been reversed.
The labor force has grown sharply over the past three months in particular, and all of the net gains in labor force participation and employment – as measured by the Payroll Report’s household survey – “have come from foreign-born workers.” Employment and participation of native-born workers have fallen since July.
MANUFACTURING RETURN
Factory work is another sector of the labor market that is experiencing an upward turnaround. In Trump’s first year, the manufacturing sector shed 93,000 jobs even as he imposed tariffs on imported goods to try to boost employment in domestic factories.
That decline began to reverse this year and since December 2025, the sector has added 101,000 jobs, resulting in a net gain of 8,000 factory jobs since Trump returned to the White House.
LONGER WITHOUT JOB
The recent acceleration in the pace of hiring has not yet begun to reduce the length of time people who lose their jobs are out of work. While layoffs remain moderate and job creation has been sufficient to bring down the unemployment rate, those who have the misfortune of losing their jobs remain unemployed on average longer than in the last five years.
Excluding the short-term surge in unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic, the median and average duration of unemployment – 11.9 weeks and 27.1 weeks, respectively – are the longest in about a decade.
IMPACTS OF AI
Most economists agree that the ever-widening adoption of artificial intelligence tools by employers has not yet led to major job losses across the economy. This does not mean that they are completely absent.
“The sectors most exposed to AI, information and finance, continued to struggle and steadily shed jobs,” noted Michael Pearce, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, following the jobs report. “In contrast, professional and business services, which also has strong adoption of AI, bucked this trend and added 70,000 jobs in October while experiencing upward revisions from previous months. These gains were broad, covering temporary help and management and technical consulting services.”
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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