CUNA Senior Economist Dawit Kebede issued the following statement in response to the Labor Department’s October Jobs Report:

“The job market showed strong growth in October, as expected, after two months of disappointing performance. As the Delta variant continues to decline, employment in leisure and hospitality is rebounding, signaling a return to normal economic activity.

“This is good news for the Federal Reserve who announced it will start tapering off its asset purchase program later this month. As wages continue to rise and inflation concerns increase, a consistently strong job market makes it easier for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, if needed, earlier than planned.

“The labor force participation rate remains constant and is 1.7 percentage points lower than pre-pandemic rates despite declining COVID-19 cases and the federal government ending supplemental unemployment benefits. This contradicts the expectation that we will start to see an increase in labor force participation this fall.”