Employers added 162,000 jobs and unemployment held at 4.1 percent

… </div><footer id="interactive-footer" class="css-1x89dit interactive-footer"><p data-testid="note" id="interactive-notes" class="css-o1ft9t interactive-notes">Note: Data is not seasonally adjusted. Inflation data is the year-over-year change in the Consumer Price Index. Wages are year-over-year changes in average hourly earnings. October 2025 is missing from the inflation data because of the government shutdown.</p><p data-testid="source" id="interactive-source" class="css-o1ft9t interactive-source">Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.</p><p data-testid="credit" id="interactive-credit" class="css-o1ft9t interactive-credit">The New York Times</p></footer></section></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-2"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-12m5bll evys1bk0">The tepid wage growth supports the Federal Reserve’s view that the labor market is not a source of inflationary pressure and reinforces its focus on stamping out inflation when Fed officials consider whether to raise rates later this month.</p><p class="css-12m5bll evys1bk0">But it is still the case that job seekers, especially new entrants to the labor market and those who have been on the sidelines for a long time, are finding limited opportunities. Although layoffs are exceedingly low, the number of workers who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more has swelled.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-5"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-3"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-12m5bll evys1bk0">The report was one of the last snapshots of the labor market before the hotly contested midterm elections, and President Trump took to social media to trumpet the “great jobs number.”</p><p class="css-12m5bll evys1bk0">“You haven’t seen anything yet!” Mr. Trump wrote, before calling on the Fed to cut interest rates.</p><p class="css-12m5bll evys1bk0">One of the more surprising drivers of growth last month was leisure and hospitality, which added 62,000 jobs after months of weakness as gas prices surged. Previous declines in the local government education sector, which may have been attributable to some extent to seasonal adjustment quirks, also partly reversed, with the sector adding 42,000 jobs.</p><p class="css-12m5bll evys1bk0">Other industries posted respectable gains as well. Construction, powered by the insatiable appetite for data centers, added 22,000 jobs. Professional and business services continued to trend upward after a prolonged slide.</p><p class="css-12m5bll evys1bk0">After an abysmal 2025, manufacturing companies have also resumed hiring. The sector added 16,000 jobs last month and has gained 58,000 jobs since December.</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-7"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-4"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-12m5bll evys1bk0">“Businesses seem to have become accustomed to operating in a bit of the unknown,” said Dawn Fay, operational president at Robert Half, a staffing firm. “Everybody is paying attention to what’s going on, but there isn’t this kind of pullback and pause like we used to see.”</p></div><aside class="css-ew4tgv" aria-label="companion column"></aside></div><div data-testid="InteractiveBlock-9"><section data-testid="inline-interactive" id="datawrapper_OXYhV" data-id="100000011133126" data-uri="nyt://embeddedinteractive/5a262813-3091-572d-b30e-0c1b5ec85db3" data-source-id="100000011133126" class="interactive-content interactive-size-scoop css-174j8de"><header id="interactive-header" class="css-obecq5 interactive-header"><h2 id="interactive-headline" class="css-gqjjs8 interactive-headline">Change in jobs by sector since 2022</h2></header><div class="css-17ih8de interactive-body" data-sourceid="100000011133126" id="embed-id-100000011133126"> …