Good evening. I'm Jeff Bennett. And I'm Omna Nawaz on the news hour tonight. Signs of a slowing labor market from the latest jobs report.

Congress considers a massive spending bill for the military that would give the Trump administration even more money than it asked for.

And we speak with physician and Republican Senator Bill Cassidy about the impending spikes

and health care premiums and his decisive vote to confirm Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy,

Jr.

We clearly differ on things like immunizations.

On immunizations, they are safe.

They do not cause autism. Welcome to the news hour. The U.S. labor market is showing further signs of cooling as the latest

jobs report shows unemployment rising to 4.6 percent. That's the highest level in the last four years.

There was some good news as payrolls climbed by 64,000 new jobs last month, better than forecast.

But the report also showed a net loss of 105,000 jobs in October.

That marks the third time that the economy has shed jobs in the last six months.

And the biggest losses have been felt at the federal level, amid mass firings,

affecting nearly 168,000 positions over the last two months.

The delayed report was due to the six-week government

shutdown. For analysis, we're joined now by David Wessel, director at the Hutchins Center on

Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. Thanks for coming in. Good to see you.

So the unemployment rate, as Omna said, is now at 4.6%. Is that a meaningful sign of labor market

weakening, or is this just normal volatility?

I think it's a meaningful sign that the labor market is weakening. There's more than the usual

uncertainty this time. I know people are always saying one month doesn't matter, because the government

couldn't do the usual collecting of data surveying people during the shutdown, the government shutdown.

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