October marked the sixth straight month of post-pandemic employment gains, as the economy added 638,000 jobs and the nation’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.9 percent, a point below September’s 7.9 percent and far lower than the record-shattering, COVID-induced 14.7 percent in April.
The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 149,806,000 people as employed in October, which is 2,243,000 more than September’s number, but 8,997,000 below the record 158,803,000 people employed in December 2019, just before the pandemic erupted.
