STORY: U.S. job growth almost stalled in October as strikes at companies including Boeing depressed manufacturing employment.

While hurricanes impacted the response rate for the payrolls survey, making it hard to get a clear picture of the labor market ahead of next week's presidential election.

The Labor Department's closely watched employment report out Friday was the last major economic data before election day.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 12,000 jobs last month, the smallest gain since December 2020 according to the Labor Department.

While the number of jobs added in August and September was revised lower.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1% largely because 220,000 people left the labor force, offsetting a drop of 368,000 jobs in household employment.

Hurricane Helene devastated the U.S. Southeast in late September and Hurricane Milton lashed Florida a week later. About half a million people said they could not go to work because of bad weather, the most since January.

Nearly all the jobs added last month were in the healthcare and government sectors, boosted by state and local government hiring.

But the strikes by machinists at Boeing and Textron, an aircraft company, caused manufacturing employment to decline by 46,000 positions.

Economists expect the Federal Reserve to sort through the noisy data and cut interest rates by 25 basis points at its policy meeting next week.