The United States gained 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October as the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States gained 64,000 good jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October as federal workers left after cuts made by the Trump administration, the government said in late reports.

Read more: The economy is giving mixed signals. Here’s what experts say they mean

The unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, the highest since 2021.

Job creation numbers for October and November, released by the Labor Department on Tuesday, were delayed by the 43-day federal government shutdown.

November’s job gains were higher than economists’ expectations of 40,000. The October job losses resulted from a 162,000 decline in federal employees, many of whom resigned at the end of the 2025 fiscal year on September 30 under pressure from billionaire Elon Musk’s campaign to clean up US government payrolls.

The Labor Department’s audits also eliminated 33,000 jobs from the August and September payrolls.

Hiring has clearly lost momentum, hampered by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of higher interest rates designed by the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 to rein in the wave of inflation.

American companies mostly keep their employees. But they are hesitant to hire new employees as they struggle to evaluate how to use artificial intelligence and how to adapt to President Donald Trump’s unpredictable policies, especially the taxes he imposes on imports from around the world.

Uncertainty leaves job seekers struggling to find work or even get interviews. Policymakers at the Federal Reserve are divided on whether the labor market needs more help from lower interest rates. Their deliberations have become more difficult because official reports on the health of the economy are coming late and incomplete after the 43-day government shutdown.

The unemployment rate, although still modest by historical standards, has been rising since reaching a 54-year low of 3.4% in April 2023.

Adding to the uncertainty is the increasing use of artificial intelligence and other technologies that could reduce demand for workers.

“We’ve seen a lot of the companies we support stuck in this stagnant mode: Are we going to hire or not? What can we automate? What do we need a human touch with?” said Matt Hobby, vice president of recruiting firm HealthSkill in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

“We’re in the Lehigh Valley, which is a major transportation hub in eastern Pennsylvania. We’ve seen some slowdown in the logistics and transportation markets, precisely because we’ve seen automation in those sectors, i.e. robotics.”

Concerns about the labor market were enough to prompt the Federal Reserve to cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point last week for the third time this year.

But three Fed officials refused to approve the move, the largest number of opponents in six years. Some Fed officials are refusing to make further cuts while inflation remains above the central bank’s 2% target. Two voted in favor of keeping the rate unchanged. Stephen Meiran, whom Trump appointed to the Fed’s Board of Governors in September, voted for a deeper cut — in line with what the president is demanding.

Due to the government shutdown, the Department of Labor did not release jobs reports for September, October and November on time.

The September jobs report was finally released on November 20, seven weeks late. It published some October data — including the number of jobs created that month by companies, nonprofits and government agencies — alongside the November report on Tuesday. But it did not announce the unemployment rate for October because it was unable to calculate the number during the shutdown.