The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not release an October jobs report thanks to the GOP’s government shutdown. But the United States likely lost a whopping 50,000 jobs last month, according to a report released Tuesday by Goldman Sachs. This is a flashing warning that the nation may be entering recession territory.
Goldman Sachs’ report was backed up by data from the payroll company ADP, which on Tuesday said that the private sector lost an average of 11,250 jobs per week in the four weeks ending Oct. 25. ADP said the numbers signal that “the labor market struggled to produce jobs consistently during the second half” of October.
If the U.S. indeed lost 50,000 jobs in October, it would be the second month in this year that the U.S. lost jobs on net, largely resulting from President Donald Trump's idiotic trade policies’ harsh effects on the economy. In June, the BLS said the economy shed 13,000 jobs, the first monthly jobs decline since 2020, when the job market crashed during the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic.
If you take out the COVID-19 anomaly, the last time the economy lost jobs was in 2010, when the United States was still recovering from the 2008 economic downturn, according to BLS data.
Goldman Sachs' report that the economy shed tens of thousands of jobs in October comes after the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported last week that layoffs are at their highest levels since the Great Recession.