October jobs report is uglier than economists expected

Job growth ground to a halt in October, as hurricanes and striking workers held down employment. Yet even excluding those effects, the report brought some warning signs for the job market.

Why it matters: The one-off disruptions make parsing the report tricky. But noise aside, the signal underneath contains more cause for worry than a buoyant September report four weeks ago.

With the unemployment rate steady at 4.1% last month, it remains a strong labor market overall. That's the lowest unemployment rate heading into a presidential election since 2000.