NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Stacey Vanick-Smith.

And I'm Adrian Ma and it's Jobs Friday!

Jobs Friday! Yes it is. The employment numbers for October are out and Adrian, they were good.

What?

The economy added 531,000 jobs in October which was higher than expected and the unemployment

rate fell from 4.8% to 4.6%.

So is this an air horn moment?

I mean yeah, yeah right? I mean maybe like a not full volume air horn moment but yeah

yeah air horn moment.

Good to hear it. Well almost air horn. I mean I know I feel like such a killjoy but you

know the October numbers they were really really great and I don't want to diminish that.

But there is still sort of this larger conundrum that's been hanging over the labor market

for a long time and is still there which is that there are you know millions and millions

of open jobs and millions and millions of unemployed people who are for some reason not

taking those jobs. And we're just left once again asking this question that's been sort

of looming over the economy for years now which is why aren't these two coming together?

It sort of reminds you of a romantic comedy right?

You know what I mean? It was like the two best friends who have an amazing connection

and they're both lonely and of course they're both wildly good looking.

Wow sure. But somehow they don't realize they're meant to be together and you're like

what are you two just gonna get together already right? Let's get to the Hollywood ending.

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