Below, EPI economists offer their initial insights on the October jobs report released this morning. After disappointing job growth numbers in August and September, a solid 531,000 jobs were added in October.

From EPI senior economist, Elise Gould (@eliselgould):

Read the full Twitter thread here.

Private payrolls grew by a 604,000 while govt employment fell by 73,000 in October. The losses in the public sector were primarily in state and local education jobs due in part to seasonal adjustment factors pulling down what were otherwise mild gains. See https://t.co/B1Ft2TdRrS

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 5, 2021

With these welcome gains on top of significant improvements early in the summer, the recovery appears to getting back on track. That said, significant job shortfalls remain, especially in leisure and hospitality as well as both private and public sector education employment. pic.twitter.com/n8CXCESJVf

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 5, 2021

The unemployment rate continued to fall hitting 4.6% in October as the labor force participation rate was unchanged. Unfortunately, this improvement was not widely shared. Particularly of note was no improvement in the already high Black unemployment rate, holding steady at 7.9%. pic.twitter.com/rGpMeuEdBP

— Elise Gould (@eliselgould) November 5, 2021

From EPI president, Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz):

Read the full Twitter thread here. 

Worth noting: slower job growth in the delta-period has been accompanied by slower wage growth in most industries. 2/ pic.twitter.com/4zfBbF5kEb

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) November 5, 2021

For sustained strong job growth for working people, we need organizing and policy changes like the PRO Act, minimum wage increases, etc. 4/

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) November 5, 2021

And 4.4 MILLION workers are out of the labor force as a result of COVID (as in: if the LFPR hadn’t dropped since Feb 2020, there would be 4.4 million more people in the labor force). Counting those folks and others who are misclassified, the unemployment rate would be 7.3%. 7/

— Heidi Shierholz (@hshierholz) November 5, 2021