The U.S. added 638,000 jobs in October, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.9% from 7.9%, the Labor Department said on Friday.
Why it matters: The pace of job gains is slowing on the back of rising coronavirus cases and expiring stimulus measures.
The big picture: The report — the latest read on the pandemic-hit labor market under President Trump — comes as results of the presidential election remain unclear, though Joe Biden could be closing in on a victory.
- A weakening labor market is "an urgent problem facing whoever will be in the White House," Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Reuters.
