A massive jobs miss doesn’t paint a positive picture for the backbone of America’s economy, according to the CEO of the top “non-woke” job board.
“Is that wrong?” RedBalloon’s Andrew Crapuchettes said in reaction to the Labor Department’s October jobs report which revealed only 12,000 positions were added to the economy, well under economists’ expectations of 113,000.
“This is shockingly low,” he continued. “There’s a lot of destruction that happened from both hurricanes and there will be a lot of construction jobs that are going to come out of that. That’s not an economic boom, and we shouldn’t see it that way, but it will cause some kind of disruption in the labor market. But, wow, I don’t know what to say. This is a horrible job report. The worst one that I think that I’ve ever seen and I think will have ripple effects throughout the economy.”
Crapuchettes noted that October is usually the busiest time for the retail industry hires ahead of the bulk of holiday shopping.
US ECONOMY ADDED 12,000 JOBS IN OCTOBER, WELL BELOW ECONOMISTS’ EXPECTATIONS
Although economists expected an underwhelming report due to hurricane disruptions and ongoing labor strikes, the RedBalloon CEO argued this is a “red flag” for businesses ahead of Election Day and going into 2025.
“I also think that there is kind of this wait-and-see, this hold effect that has been happening with this election coming up. I think this is an election that people are following more closely than usual. And a lot of the employers I’m talking to have just been like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to hold on any hiring. I’m going to hold on any investment. I’m going to hold on anything, until I find out how the election goes, because it’s not only taking a lot of my attention, but I don’t know how it’s going to go for the economy,’” Crapuchettes explained.
“So everyone’s kind of tightening their belt, kind of looking around, trying to figure out what’s going on,” he continued. “And the small businesses have been frozen watching this election. So I see those as the factors that are driving this. This is still a shocking number. And again, probably the worst job report I’ve ever seen. In October, right in front of the Christmas season, to only have 12,000 jobs just blows my mind.”
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The number of jobs added in the prior two months were both revised downward, with job creation in August revised down by 81,000 from a gain of 159,000 to 78,000, while September was revised down by 31,000 from a gain of 254,000 to 223,000.
It would not surprise Crapuchettes if October’s report was also eventually revised.
“If my accountant came to me with the number of revisions we’re seeing on this job report, I’d fire that accountant,” he said, “because to have this kind of miss consistently every single month is devastating. And it makes people nervous about this number.”
“With revisions, it could go negative. Which would be the first time in a long time since COVID, really, that we would see that kind of activity. So I think everyone should strap in. I do think that we’re going to see some Fed rate cuts because… this job number feels a lot like not a soft landing, but a very hard landing for our economy in a very tumultuous political time,” the CEO added.
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What’s required to move the needle on job creation, according to the hiring expert, is deregulation on corporations and small businesses.
“Employers need optimism. They need to know that the economy, the government is on their side, not against them. And I think we need deregulation badly in this country,” Crapuchettes started.
“We are at a debt-to-GDP ratio of 127%. We don’t see any signs of slowing down the government spending. That needs to stop and that needs to slow down… when you hear things like taxes on unrealized capital gains, which will never happen, but the fact that it’s even being said out loud, that makes everyone just freeze… ‘I need to not take risk. I need to not push my business. I need to just try and hold onto as many of my assets as possible,’ and that destroys money, velocity and the economy.”
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RedBalloon’s latest Freedom Economy Index survey, produced also with Public Square, found 87% of respondents would close their business if the Harris-Walz ticket wins. On the other hand, 83% said they would expand hiring if Trump is re-elected.
“When you’re in a place in America where the only way to survive as a business is to be a large business, who has a lobbying organization that’s helping you get benefits for your business, and that’s the only way to survive in America, that is going to kill the American dream,” Crapuchettes said.
“When I see a job report like this, there’s two reactions,” the CEO expanded. “The first reaction is you can be, ‘I’m just going to take care of myself on my own,’ or, ‘Hey, there are people that are hurting in the economy.’”
“You talk about thousands or hundreds of thousands of jobs, it feels very impersonal. But those are people right now that are struggling to pay the bills… Use this as an opportunity to see how are you going to bless somebody else? How are you going to help someone else who’s in need? Maybe they need a job and you can’t give them a job, but you can give them encouragement… we need to be an encouragement to each other right now because this is a pretty devastating report for a lot of families in America.”
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FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
