How many jobs were added in October 2026?
US employers added 165,000 jobs in October 2026, more than three times the average gain of 48,000 a month over the year before, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report released on Friday, November 6. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.1% from 4.2% in September.
The two months before it also turned out better than first reported. BLS raised its count for August from 133,000 to 186,000 and for September from 29,000 to 60,000, so there are 84,000 more jobs on the books than it reported a month ago.
Most of the new jobs went to business services, hospitals and delivery companies, though. Office jobs at tech companies barely moved, both in the government's numbers and on the company career pages we track. So October was a good month for the job market as a whole, but it may not feel that way if you're looking for a software or marketing job.
What the jobs report measures
The jobs report, which BLS calls the Employment Situation, comes out on the first Friday of most months at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. It's built from two surveys. One asks about 119,000 businesses and government agencies how many people are on their payroll. The other asks about 60,000 households whether the people living there are working or looking for work.
The first survey gives the "jobs added" number, which you'll also hear called nonfarm payrolls. The second gives the unemployment rate. Both describe the week or pay period that includes the 12th of the month, so October's report describes the middle of October, not the end of it.
| Measure | September 2026 | October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs added | 60,000 (revised) | 165,000 |
| Unemployment rate | 4.2% | 4.1% |
| People unemployed | 7.1 million | 7.1 million |
| Out of work 27 weeks or more | 1.94 million | 1.96 million |
| Part time but want full time | 4.50 million | 4.84 million |
| Broad unemployment rate (U-6) | 7.6% | 7.9% |
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, October 2026, released November 6, 2026, Summary Table A and Table A-15.
Pay went up too. Average hourly pay for private-sector workers rose 14 cents in October to $38.00, and it's 3.1% higher than a year ago. The average work week stayed at 34.4 hours.
Where the new jobs were
Four industries made up almost all of the gain. Professional and business services, a group that covers accounting, consulting, temp agencies and tech services, added 70,000 jobs. That's far above its average of 15,000 a month over the past year.
| Industry | Change in October |
|---|---|
| Professional and business services | +70,000 |
| Health care | +42,000 |
| Transportation and warehousing | +25,000 |
| Manufacturing | +19,000 |
| Retail | +6,000 |
| Construction | -3,000 |
| Information (software publishers, media, telecom) | -1,000 |
| Leisure and hospitality (restaurants, hotels) | -13,000 |
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, October 2026, Table B-1. Industry changes are rounded.
Inside those groups, the details matter more than the totals. About 20,000 of the business services gain came from employment agencies, and most of those were temp jobs. Computer systems design, the part that most people would call tech consulting, added only about 3,000. Hospitals added 16,000. Couriers and messengers added 17,000, a gain that often comes as shippers get ready for the holidays. Our seasonal jobs article covers who is hiring for that.
Manufacturing has now added 101,000 jobs since December 2025, and makers of computers and electronics added 7,000 of October's 19,000.
The information industry, which includes software publishers, lost 1,000 jobs. BLS describes it, along with retail, finance, construction and government, as having changed little.
What the report doesn't say
Two numbers in the same report point the other way. The number of people working part time because they couldn't find full-time work rose by 339,000 to 4.8 million. That pushed the broad unemployment rate, called U-6, up to 7.9% from 7.6%. U-6 counts everyone who is unemployed plus people stuck in part-time work and people who want a job but stopped looking.
The long wait hasn't eased either. About 2.0 million people had been out of work for 27 weeks or more, which is 27.6% of everyone unemployed, so more than 1 in 4 job seekers has been looking for over six months.
The report also can't tell you how easy it is to get hired. It counts jobs that exist, not how many people applied for each one. For that, the government's JOLTS report is the better guide, and it showed hiring barely moving in September. Layoff announcements are also low right now, according to Challenger's October count, so for most job seekers slow hiring is a bigger problem than cuts.
What company career pages showed in October
Hiring Tempo checks the open jobs on hundreds of company career pages every morning, mostly tech and other fast-growing companies. To compare October fairly, we used the same 418 companies on October 1 and November 1. We left out 10 companies whose lists jumped or dropped by more than half in a single day, or whose list we cap at 2,000 jobs, because those changes come from how their careers sites work, not from hiring.
Across those 418 companies, open jobs went from 33,584 to 33,435, down 0.4%. Jobs located in the US went from 20,222 to 20,324, up 0.5%. 186 companies grew their lists and 175 shrank them, so the picture is flat, which matches the government's small changes for software and tech consulting.
One group stood out. Companies that build drones, rockets, robots and other hardware added the most US jobs, the same month the government counted 19,000 new factory jobs.
| Type of company | Companies | Oct 1 | Nov 1 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware, robotics, defense and space | 28 | 2,209 | 2,514 | +13.8% |
| Data and analytics | 15 | 1,180 | 1,225 | +3.8% |
| Fintech | 46 | 2,012 | 2,059 | +2.3% |
| AI and machine learning | 63 | 4,249 | 4,298 | +1.2% |
| Developer tools | 48 | 1,398 | 1,383 | -1.1% |
| Office and productivity software | 33 | 1,134 | 1,096 | -3.4% |
| Health tech | 31 | 1,700 | 1,580 | -7.1% |
| All 418 companies | 418 | 20,222 | 20,324 | +0.5% |
Source: Hiring Tempo, open jobs on company career pages, October 1 and November 1, 2026. Excludes NVIDIA, whose list is capped at 2,000 jobs.
Four companies made up most of the hardware rise. Relativity Space, which builds rockets, went from 202 US jobs to 321. Shield AI, a defense drone maker, went from 462 to 532, Saronic from 200 to 252, and Skydio from 120 to 165. Each one grew a little at a time through the month instead of jumping overnight, which is why we read it as real hiring and not a change to their careers site.
Health tech is the opposite of the government's health care number, and the difference is useful. The 42,000 health care jobs BLS counted are mostly in hospitals and home care. The 31 health tech companies we track are software and insurance companies, so their 7% drop says nothing about nurses or aides.
Our numbers have limits. We count job postings, not hires, so a company can list 50 jobs and fill five, and one posting can sometimes cover several openings. A shorter list can mean jobs were filled, or that a company changed how its careers page works, so we don't treat a drop as proof of layoffs.
Even in a flat month, the lists turn over fast. About 9,800 of the jobs open on November 1 at those 418 companies were first posted in October, so close to 3 in 10 of them were less than a month old. For the companies that added the most jobs overall, see Companies Hiring Right Now: November 2026.
When the next jobs report comes out
The October JOLTS report, which shows openings and hires, comes out on Tuesday, December 1. The November 2026 jobs report is due three days later, on Friday, December 4, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.
Sources
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, October 2026, released November 6, 2026, with Table B-1 (jobs by industry) and Table A-15 (broad unemployment measures). The archived copy of the release has the same figures.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation technical note, for how the two surveys work.
- Hiring Tempo, open jobs on company career pages, checked daily. Counts are from October 1 and November 1, 2026, for 418 companies listed on both dates.