Nonfarm payrolls were -105,000 in October and gained 64,000 in November. 
Five Initial Thoughts
- Nonfarm payrolls declined by 105,000 in October and rebounded by 64,000 in November.
- The negative revision hit parade continues in November.
- There is ho household survey data for October due to the government shutdown. This creates gaps in some of my charts.
- There is no reason to believe any of these reports, but let’s discuss the information anyway.
- The St. Louis Fed data that I use to create charts was seriously delayed this morning. So this report took extra time.
2025 Synopsis
- Since January 2025, Employment (Household Survey) is -154,000.
- Since January 2025, Nonfarm Payrolls (Establishment Survey) is +499,000.
- Since January 2025, Fulltime Employment (Household Survey) is -1,726,000
All of this data is grossly distorted. I highly doubt nonfarm payrolls are nearly a half-million to the good in 2025.
And that -1.7 million decline in fulltime employment looks skewed in the other direction.
These distortions are compounded by what I believe to be nonsensical annual revisions in January.
Monthly Job Report Details
- Nonfarm Payroll: +64,000 to 159,552,000 – Establishment Survey (October Fell by 105,000)
- Civilian Non-institutional Population: N/A to 274,633,000
- Civilian Labor Force: N/A to 171,571,000 – Household Survey
- Participation Rate: N/A to 62.5% – Household Survey
- Employment: N/A to 163,741,000 – Household Survey
- Unemployment: N/A to 7,831,000 – Household Survey
- Baseline Unemployment Rate: N/A to 4.6% – Household Survey (September Was 4.4%)
- Not in Labor Force: N/A to 103,061,000 – Household Survey
- U-6 unemployment: N/A to 8.7% – Household Survey (September Was 8.0%)
Permanently Discontinued
Every month, I used to publish two BLS-produced on job sector gains and month-over-month changes.
Today, I see this notice. BLS will no longer publish the Current Employment Statistics Highlights document. CES data is available in our online LABSTAT database.
I will investigate using the provided tool to provide the data.
Monthly Revision for November
- The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised down by 22,000, from -4,000 to -26,000.
- The change for September was revised down by 11,000, from +119,000 to +108,000.
- With these revisions, employment in August and September combined is 33,000 lower than previously reported.
- Due to the recent federal government shutdown, this is the first publication of October data and thus there are no revisions for October this month.
My Revision Comments from September
- In July the BLS said oops. Employment in May and June was a combined 258,000 lower than previously reported (now revised lower again).
- In August, the BLS said oops again. The BLS reported negative job growth for June.
- The revision hit parade continues in September. July was revised down by 7,000, from +79,000 to +72,000, and the change for August was revised down by 26,000, from +22,000 to -4,000.
Part-Time Jobs
- Involuntary Part-Time Work: N/A to 5,488,000 (up 909,000 from September)
- Voluntary Part-Time Work: N/A to 23,126,000 (up 370,000 from September)
- Total Full-Time Work: N/A to 134,170,000 (down 983,000 from September)
- Total Part-Time Work: N/A to 29,486,000 (up 1,025,000 from September)
- Multiple Job Holders: N/A to 9,301,000 (up 499,000 from September)
The above numbers never total correctly due to the way the BLS makes seasonal adjustments. I list them as reported.
Note that multiple job holders add to nonfarm payrolls but not the number of employed.
Hours and Wages
This data is frequently revised.
- Average weekly hours of all private employees rose 0.1 hour to 34.3 hours.
- Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees was flat at 33.2 hours.
- Average weekly hours of manufacturers rose 0.1 hour to 39.9 hours.
An overall decline or rise of a tenth of an hour does not sound line much, but with employment over 160 million, it’s more significant than it appears at first glance.
In a falling employment setup, hours of the remaining employees tend to rise, at least initially.
Hourly Earnings
This data is also frequently revised. Here are the numbers as reported this month.
Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers rose $0.05 to $36.86. A year ago the average wage was $35.61. That’s a gain of 3.5%.
Average hourly earnings of Production and Nonsupervisory Workers rose $0.11 to $31.76. A year ago the average wage was $30.58. That’s a gain of 3.9%.
Nonsense talk. The talking heads claim wages are rising faster than prices. They aren’t if you factor in homeowner’s insurance, property taxes, and food weighted properly.
Unemployment Rate
Through July, the Unemployment Rate has been between 4.0 percent and 4.2 percent for 15 straight months.
That ended in August. Do we credit Biden, Trump, the Fed, or the BLS?
4.6 percent is the highest since the 4.7 percent reading for September 2021.
Alternative Measures of Unemployment
Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of the unemployment rate.
- The official unemployment rate is 4.6 percent.
- U-6 is much higher at 8.7 percent.
Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.
Some of those dropping out of the labor force retired because they wanted to retire. Some dropped out over Covid fears and never returned. Still others took advantage of a strong stock market and retired early.
The rest is disability fraud, forced retirement (need for Social Security income), and discouraged workers.
Birth Death Model
Starting January 2014, I dropped the Birth/Death Model charts from this report.
The birth-death model pertains to the birth and death of corporations not individuals except by implication.
For those who follow the numbers, I retain this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.
Household Survey vs. Payroll Survey
- The payroll survey (sometimes called the establishment survey) is the headline jobs number. It is based on employer reporting.
- The household survey is a phone survey conducted by the BLS. It measures employment, unemployment and other factors.
If you work one hour, you are employed. If you don’t have a job and fail to look for one, you are not considered unemployed, rather, you drop out of the labor force.
Looking for job openings on Jooble or Monster or in the want ads does not count as “looking for a job”. You need an actual interview or send out a resume.
These distortions artificially lower the unemployment rate, artificially boost full-time employment, and artificially increase the payroll jobs report every month.
The BLS payroll reports smack of oversampling large employers and undersampling small employers where jobs have been trending lower.
Final Thoughts
Five months ago I said “The BLS monthly data is total garbage. I do the best I can with BLS data.”
Four months ago, I said “The stench is so powerful that no one can pretend there is not a massive data collection, sampling problem at the BLS.”
Two months ago, I said “Not only is BLS sampling more than a bit questionable, but the birth-death model is proven garbage, and ICE raids are distorting immigrants’ ability and willingness to answer phone surveys by anyone working for the government.”
This month I note still more negative revisions.
Labor Market Recap
December 3, 2025 : Small Businesses Drop 120,000 Jobs in November, ADP Total Down 32,000
It’s another grim month according to ADP.
Change in Small, Medium, Large Employment Details
- Small: -197,000
- Medium: +275,000
- Large: +1,012,000
December 4, 2025: Challenger Reports Employers Announced 71,321 Job Cuts in November
Announcements imply future, not immediate, layoffs and unemployment claims.
No Surprise
None of this is a surprise. I have been discussing, and predicting this all year.
The tariff impact on small businesses is starting to take a big toll on small businesses.
Unlike large employers, small businesses have fewer means of tariff avoidance and less ability to hold inventory or eat the tariffs.
December 5, 2025: Revelio Says Payrolls Decline by 9,000 the 5th Drop in 7 Months
We don’t have BLS reports but we do have ADP and Revelio.
December 11, 2025: How Fast is the US Shedding Foreign-Worker Jobs?
Think carefully.
Please read that last link. It’s an unbiased assessment that vastly differs from other reports on what’s happening with US and foreign workers.
Business Employment Dynamics report for Q1 2025 came out today, worth a look.
https://www.bls.gov/bdm/
More accurate than NFP, but laggy.
Trump says on Truth Social “the greatest economy ever in the greatest country on earth…..and Venezuela stole our land and our oil.” (irony)
Subjective, I agree, but in my area in the south, many companies simply cannot find workers. I have friends in rail, oilfield, and heavy diesel repair who cannot get anyone to work. Some job posts aren’t even answered. I also have a nephew making almost 6 figures fresh out of high school, because he’s willing to work on a barge 21 days a month and he could pass a drug screen. I suspect the same problems the military has had for the last few years is infecting the labor force. Illegal aliens aren’t a factor in any of these industries.
My brother has been out of a job since May this year. Then again, he seems to be a perpetual optimist who ignores economic data.
I saw the job market topping before January 2024 when my R&D department was closed. I took the first job offer, even though it meant moving 850 miles. Not only am I fortunate there is a backlog of work, but I enjoy my co-workers.
The global equity ACWI ETF, representing 92.3 trillion equivalent dollars on 11-12 Dec 2025, had a gap lower low opening today with maintenance of the gap consistent with an incipient 1982 to 2026 13/32 of 33 year :: x:2.5x crash with its first crash nadir at the end of Dec 2025 or a day or two trading days into Jan 2026. US unemployment is on the cusp of its recessional rapid acceleration phase.
Response rates make all of this BLS data more unreliable ~ IMO.
There is tangible fear in immigrant communities and a legitimate concern for those that hire immigrants. ICE tactics and the nature their job makes for a volatile situation. No doubt that they are removing some seriously undesirable gang and cartel members.
That does not mean that those undocumented immigrants that have been here a long time with jobs, family and homes should be apprehended or deported without due process.
Overall, I think that the jobs market is more difficult (worse) than is published. With 1.6 million deportations there should be huge numbers of domestic hires, but that is not happening.
Construction is slowing everywhere I look, with the exception of infrastructure for AI and Amazon shipping and warehousing complexes.
Yes, the MAGA clown narrative was that “illegals” were driving down wages so they must be surging right now. They were also “stealing” everyone’s jobs so they should be plentiful now. These low wage job stealing immigrants were also buying up all the housing so houses should be practically free now.
If none of that is happening, perhaps MAGA clowns can explain their stupidity. oh wait never mind, it was just a dog whistle for flagrant bigotry and/or racism. Well now they can officially be called out for what they were all along.
The MAGA crowd likes to blame immigrants for everything:
Didn’t take taco long to almost destroy the economy, especially the middle class and below. What a piece of work.
Meanwhile, in those countries targeted by tariffs that did not buckle and stood their ground, their overall exports grew, even when those US bound shrank, as well as their overall employment. International trade is far greater than just trading with Europe and the US in this new century.
> While I agree, there has been a slowdown in jobs recently, and signs of weakness, the ones in charge and with the Data in front of them (I voted for them, and I will back them, until they lose in the midterm or gain numbers) are telling us that Employment Growth is on the way, so for now I will be patient.
– Data “indicates a modest increase in job openings, with total employment projected to grow by 5.2 million from 2024 to 2034, primarily driven by the healthcare and social assistance sectors”.
30 years ago (December 1995) the U-6 unemployment rate was10.3%. The CPI inflation rate was 2.5%. The FED cut the Fed Funds rate to 5.50% from 5.75%. Should the FED cut rates if the U-6 is 8.7% and the Fed Funds rate is 3.75%?
Should unemployment be increasing in a A+++ economy?
Personally I believe it’s over 10%, and another 15% seriously under-employed.
The only time it was below that, was in a short period just before the year 2000 and in the first years of Trump I.
I just look at the offered salaries in non-highly specialized jobs. During Trump I, we had even fast-food chains offering extraordinary salaries for floor managers… and way back, right before 2000, you could find jobs for high-school diplomas requiring 3-years factory experience exceeding 100K salary (machinist supervisor here in Illinois – 115K back then).
Right now, companies are not hiring, the government is not hiring unless it’s a ‘bespoke DEI’ type position and even that’s hush-hush. Add to that the mayhem of AI, and the tariffs to some extent. Sure, there’s financial activity, but unrelated to real job creation, not starting a YouTube gig.
It’ll get worse, and the report metrics will change to avoid reporting true numbers. If the Dems get elected, they’ll report it in the same way they were reporting DC crime stats, which is only marginally worse than the Trump admin’s reports.
PS. Meanwhile, Europe is economically dead in the water.
Casual Observer commented to another post “Many years ago Mish use to have a post on H1B but it has been a couple of decades since he posted it. He was one of the ones that effectively gave up on his profession because of H1B and went into the FIRE economy. The revolt is coming soon from citizens and it isn’t going to be pretty.”
Good memory CO. I lost my programming job in 2001 and was out of work for two years. So I know how being unemployed feels. I did not “blame” H1B but I do think it impacted me.
I was then and probably still am today one of the best mainframe programmers in the country. Countrywide Financial put out an ad for a job with requirements so specific that I bet less than 100 people in the country qualified. And I was located 20 miles away. I could not get an interview.
Today I sill wonder if the job existed or if this was all H1B. I suspect that I could get a job working on the legacy Social Security system now. Well maybe not if the vetting process read this blog.
You made the mistake of aging.
A fatal mistake for all.
24 years ago Mish was a young man and wouldn’t be aging out of anything.
Ironically, AI is decimating most programming jobs. Not sure where that leaves those H1B coders. I’ve been playing around with AI and it’s easy to get any of them to write code for you to do a variety of things. There’s a cloud app called n8n that does workflow automation with all drag and drop and very little coding. I watch YouTube videos on it an am blown away by what it can do now. There are also sites that can build entire storefront website with a prompt!
And we’re just at the start of this whole AI thing, in a few years it may replace every white collar profession that doesn’t require “hands on” type of work. The days are numbered for accountants, lawyers, financial advisors, tax advisors, etc.
Eh. I was a cheerleader for driverless cars, absolutely convinced that we’d have them by 2020.
I was wrong.
My daughter is a senior software developer and she says that AI is helpful, but on huge legacy systems, the AI is non-helpful.
It can’t understand the overall impact of changes across a broad range of applications, databases, legal restrictions, production vs. QA environments, security, etc.
I am going to wait before I predict that highly trained, experienced white-collar jobs are threatened.
I am a senior software developer and I think that AI is helpful only in legacy applications. In systems software it’s like a junior programmer who only knows the algorithms found in textbooks. Of course, both AI and the just-grad were trained on such books. Still, it’s my personal junior programmer that I won’t be hiring out of school. I’m glad that I’m at the top of my career on my way to early retirement, for it’s not a career that I’d recommend to high-schoolers anymore.
In my industry, machine translation was ‘helpful” for 3-4 years.
How it works is simple: a gigantic database of already translated sentences, and over time they are separated by industry, then fragmented (where you add rules etc), and presto.
Two years ago, machine translation could replace most translators and turn them into cheap proofreaders (to iron out errors). Last year, AI was added, as an interface, so that ordinary people could now use it without knowing how to use specialized tools.
Pretty soon software developers will also become just proofreaders of machine-generated code. That’s still lots of work, but pays crap (about 30% of before if you’re lucky). Jobs will be assigned to Agencies, which will be sending tons of projects abroad to cheaper contractors, and your daughter will have to compete with them.
I give it max 2 years before the bottom collapses and the senior developers (and/or their wages) are seriously threatened.
Currently correct about huge legacy systems, generally because AI won’t have all the context it needs about the system (requirements, db design, class and interaction diagrams), but if you have AI do that stuff for you, new huge systems can be made to be very manageable by AI. Deep programming jobs will deteriorate, but they will be replaced by more abstract information systems jobs.
What I have discovered is that it isn’t AI that’s limited, it’s the prompt engineer (e.g. you and I) that don’t have the right level of intelligence to interact with AI and ask it specifically and exactly what you want.
It’s like going to the doctor and saying, “my back hurts, fix it” and there is no easy way for a doctor to understand what’s happening without examining the back, determining when/how/where the back pain flares up, doing blood work, etc.
Because people want quick fixes, the doctor will say, “take Tylenol” or if you’re in a lot of pain give you an opioid and send you on your way. That’s what AI is doing, giving out superficial answers to superficial questions.
The best way to get better results is to ask AI to teach you how to ask it questions when trying to get it to do something.
And like I said, AI is 3 years old and if it can replace Jr developers at 3 then what can it do at 13 and 23?
The one I use can think about 100 files at a time. There are 22,000 files in my current project.
If I had a teenager child at the moment I would advise them to become plumbers or electricians. Forgot college, a total waste of money.
Does AI do Cobol?
I did Cobol in 1987 in a fast-paced computer school in Greece (and Pascal). I didn’t thing much of it at the time, and being in the island of Crete, where computers were considered alien devices, wasn’t giving me any image of future developments. So I stupidly thought that hardware is the future.
In 1997 (and 29) I came to Purdue for Computer Science, but I thought (maybe wisely) that eventually getting to the age of 40 and typing code would be a disadvantage, compared to all the kids around me. I was straight As but I quit. Come to think of it, even if I remembered Cobol and had advanced it, those jobs are usually temporary.
So I continued translations (natural talent), and for a few years I never fell below $250/day and fully remote. Though I knew we will be replaced by machines, I was off in my estimate by 5 years at least.
I should have married money (had my chance) and just like Gordon Gecko embark in the best business in America, as he said: “I own things“.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Mish, you can more easily predict the future than the past.
Yes
Yes, it does. I tried even some exotic programming languages and it was fluent in them.
Not really. It can do a bit of the monkey work somewhat passably, but it’s really limited. It’s like a very knowledgeable intern with little common sense, no view of the big picture, and no ability to improve.
If it could do what I do, I’d have it working multiple jobs for me.
If you find it limited, it’s not AI, it’s YOU. You just don’t know how to use it properly. See my comment below Peter.
Funny, I was debating AI with a friend of mine over drinks recently. I am an AI sceptic but he is a full on believer. He told me that he can now code with AI, and that it took him about 5 minutes to learn with AI (what he literally said, probably an exaggeration for effect).
Not sure why you would be skeptical. It’s like being skeptical that a 2400 baud modem won’t ever go faster than 2400 baud. We now have gigabit standard on wireless devices.
We went from 8 track boxes to cassette tapes to cd’s to endless streaming music. You can produce high quality AI music with UDIO. AI can generate any kind of image you want.
There is already a fully generated AI TV show from prompts!
https://www.thedailybeast.com/reality-tvs-first-fully-ai-series-debuts/
Google demo’d a whole new skyscrapper being designed by AI. This included blueprints, floor plans, etc. Architects are going to be nothing more than quality assurance guys.
If you’re skeptical it’s because you’re not really paying attention and totally out of touch which means someone that knows AI is going to eat your lunch.
And yeah, AI is writing code for me now to make my life easier.
Mish the October drop was pretty much all govt jobs. And we have labor inflation still running around 4%. So Fed should cut rates? That would be a travesty at these already low rates
Welcome To The Trumptanic!
Ports of call: Unemployment, Recession, Depression, Doom & Gloom, Inflation, War and Misery.
Your cruise will last 3 more years and you can’t get off no matter how many times you get sick, go hungry, lose your cabin or get gobsmacked. The incompetent crew and captain may sink the ship but there are no refunds.
There’s an escape hatch but you gotta have an exit strategy to use it!
Funny post but it hurts to smile at this point.
“There is no reason to believe any of these reports”
LOL, that just about sums it up. Funny how a six-figure job loss number in October gets hidden by the government shutdown (well, the media are underplaying it.)
That seems like the most significant piece of data. Recessionary, if it keeps up in December/Jan.
The Golden age of President PedoPig is truly upon us!
Trump says building DC triumphal arch is domestic policy chief’s ‘primary thing’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/14/trump-arch-washington-dc-policy-chief
If any of these self aggrandizing atrocities survives, people in the future will look at them and think “what an asshole. “
Most people look at Trump and say that already
Wow! News flash…
A hardcore Trumper friend of mine flipped on him last week! This guy is a physician from California and I’ve known him for over a decade. He was one of those guys that you were afraid to talk politics with because he parroted his wife’s Fox News drivel.
Out of the blue, he blasted Trump and came out in a total rant about being sick of the absolute bullshit Trump has been doing.
Two farmers I know were at least questioning Trump this week as well.
The emperor has no clothes and his minions have none either ~ being winter it is getting cold for them as realty bites hard into their bank accounts.
Looks like he’s finally tipping over… I was beginn to doubt that it was possible
It’s happening all over.
https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-identify-maga-poll-11211564
The proportion of Republicans who say they identify more with the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement than the traditional Republican Party has declined, a new poll has shown.
Just like Trump’s first term. The smart ones bailed quickly, the dumb ones hung in for a while then jumped ship. The really really dumb ones hung on till the end then voted for him again.
The monuments will allow them to do so forevermore!