US Unemployment Hits 4.4% in October, According to Chicago Fed

A hair salon in Medford, a city in Greater Boston, Massachusetts, has a "Now Hiring" sign in its window.

sarah

Nov 7, 2025 - 12:26

US Unemployment Hits 4.4% in October, According to Chicago Fed

November 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate rose to its highest level in four years in October, according to an estimate released Friday by the Chicago Fed, as the hiring rate for unemployed workers slowed and the rate of layoffs and other job separations increased.

The regional Fed bank estimated that the unemployment rate rose to 4.36% last month – 4.4% on the rounded basis typically reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics – from 4.35% in September.

Read about innovative ideas and people working on solutions to global crises with the Reuters Beacon newsletter.

The bank has been estimating the unemployment rate twice a month since shortly before the longest-ever federal government shutdown, which halted the flow of published reports on the economy from the BLS, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Census Bureau. The last U.S. unemployment figure released by the BLS for August was 4.3% – the highest since October 2021 when it was 4.5%.

"The October 2025 reference week for the BLS survey (October 12–18), which is used to estimate the unemployment rate, overlapped with the federal government shutdown that began in early October," the Chicago Fed said. "This specific factor will only be partially reflected in the final release of the Chicago Fed Labor Market Indicators for October 2025. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that up to 750,000 federal government employees were furloughed during the government shutdown, representing up to 0.4 percent of the civilian labor force (based on August 2025 data)."