Job Destruction

We think we know that Hurricane Helene in late September and Hurricane Milton on October 9th, both must have had an impact on employment data in Florida, North Carolina and several other southeastern states. Helene obviously struck ahead of the BLS reference period for the month of October, while Milton struck during the October reference period. The BLS released a statement that the Household Survey was conducted according to procedure and that the response rate was surprisingly within the normal range.

The Establishment Survey response collection rate for October, however, was poor, at least initially, was similar when comparing areas impacted by the storms with areas not impacted. Therefore, the BLS made no changes to either the Establishment nor the Household survey estimation procedures. The statement goes on to explain that it was not possible to quantify or isolate the impacts of the storms on labor markets, but that there was no discernible effect on the national employment rate.

Brace yourself for the numbers, because they're awful. From the Establishment Survey, the BLS reported Non-Farm Payrolls, once seasoned and also adjusted for the birth /death model, increased by 12K. Interestingly, that number was derived through government net hires adding up to a net +40K, less a print of -28K for private sector net hires. Yikes.

The BLS also reported downward revisions in total of 112K to the August and September NFP data. This puts net "job creation" according to the Establishment Survey of -100K. More accurately, this would be referred to as "job destruction."

Flipping over to the Household Survey, the number of people that left the civilian labor force in October was 220K, while the number of those outside of the labor force increased by 428K. The number of unemployed persons increased by 150K, while the number of employed persons decreased by 368K. So according to the Household Survey, October job creation / job destruction was -368K. The Participation Rate slowed from 62.7% to 62.6% as the Employment to Population Ratio dropped from 60.2% to an even 60%.