This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel with my colleague Jim McTag, former Washington editor

of Barron's magazine, now a novelist in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on the border of Maryland,

and we're looking at the national economy, the local economy we've looked at. It looks healthy at election

time, shopping, but the national economy, this headline from London, Jim, in these last

hours. U.S. adds just 12,000 jobs as hurricanes and strikes produce worst report of Biden's

term. Subhead, October figures far below average forecast of 100,000 job gains comes just four days

before the U.S. election.

Subhead, Democrats braced for jobs report blow ahead of election.

Did you expect this, Mr. Permabair?

No, but I ignore this job report because of the hurricane,

because of the strike at Boeing. I think the estimate of 100,000 was probably right on the money.

It still shows that the hiring is slowing down.

But, I mean, it's a mixed picture.

Huntington Ingalls, which is one of our largest shipbuilders, it's a key cog in our defense industry, got hammered in the stock market this week.

And one of the reasons that got hammered is it doesn't have enough employees to keep up with the production of nuclear submarines. And the reason is

the boomers are retiring. And, you know, it's, these are building ships are not easy physical

job. So, you know, I can understand why they finally want to hit the beach.

But it shows you that there's huge demand for younger people across a lot of industries.

So I don't think the job picture across the country is as dire as suggested by this week's, this month's job report.

Hiring is slowing.

People are looking for more the more qualified applicant.

You know, they're not just scraping the bottom of the barrel

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