Published November 1, 2024 11:50am EDT
CEO of top ‘non-woke’ job board reacts to ‘the worst’ report he’s ‘ever’ seen: ‘Red flag’ for 2025
The last jobs report before the 2024 election shows only 12K jobs added to US economy in October
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.
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.”