Unemployment improved for veterans last month

October brought back more than 600,000 jobs, notably in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail, and construction, and we’re continuing to see stability in the financial services and insurance industries.  

And since this month we’re celebrating Veterans Day and sharing more about the challenges this group of workers faces, it’s worth calling out that employment continued to improve last month. Even though this rate is almost double 2019 record-low numbers, veterans are gaining ground in employment. 

Another notable stat: women are now officially less unemployed than men, which was the case pre-pandemic. While the gender gap in employment is closing, unemployment among non-white workers is only slowly ticking downward. 

Employment by the numbers 

• Overall unemployment: 6.9 percent (decrease from 7.4 percent last month) 
• Unemployment by demographic groups: 
  • Women – 6.5 percent 
  • Men – 6.7 percent 
  • White workers – 6 percent  
  • Asian workers – 7.6 percent 
  • Hispanic workers – 8.8 percent  
  • Black workers – 10.8 percent 
• Temporary layoffs decreased, but permanent job losses didn’t change much throughout the month, indicating those roles are having a harder time bouncing back. 
• The number of long-term unemployed (jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased to 3.6 million, accounting for 32.5 percent of total unemployed. 

Hiring insights based on the jobs report 

While some industries may still have limited opportunities for job seekers, others look more promising as we near the final stretch of the year.

Some trends we’re seeing:  

1. Retail jobs have been down since April, but over the last few months we’ve seen a steady return to growth, especially as seasonal jobs open up. There is still a desire to shop in stores, leading to this increase in jobs, but there’s also more demand for retail-adjacent and e-commerce roles, like delivery drivers, first-line supervisors, and order fulfillment and stock clerks. This also includes an increase in demand for truck drivers ahead of the holiday shopping season and potential pandemic-related shutdown. 
2. Both the tech and healthcare industries are holding strong and showing signs of growth. Professional, scientific and technical services are among top industries hiring, with software and app developers in high demand. And three of the top 10 companies hiring right now are in healthcare. 
3. Who’s looking for jobs? Workers aged 18-24 and 65+ are driving the most traffic to CareerBuilder right now. Make sure your posted jobs are easy to apply to and your sites simple to navigate. From job seekers using a mobile app to potentially less tech-savvy older workers, streamlining your process can drive applications. 

If you’re actively hiring: 

• Get in front of the right candidates and leverage tools like job boards and virtual hiring events to engage with job seekers. There are many strong candidates out there who are switching industries and leveraging transferable skills to do so.  
• Take a skills-based approach to hiring and give more weight to skills than past experience. This can be accomplished through smart technology, like our skills-based matching capabilities, and can help highlight candidates who have the necessary skills (plus a unique background) to add value to your teams.  
• Showcase safety culture: If you allow work from home, promote it – job seekers are increasingly searching for opportunities that will allow them to work remotely.  

If you’re not hiring but want to save time and money down the line: 

• Forward-thinking companies are cultivating their talent pools so they’re ready to staff up fast when the time is right.  
• Candidates can make themselves more attractive to employers but using tools to get them noticed, for example: building their resume on cb.com using our AI technology.   

CareerBuilder in the news 

Irina Novoselsky, CareerBuilder CEO, shares more insight on Bloomberg. Skip to the 22-minute mark for more jobs report analysis. 

Cheddar: CareerBuilder helping connect job seekers, employers despite economic downturn of pandemic