It's all smoke and mirrors.
In September,
the number of government workers as tracked by the Household Survey soared by 785K,
from 21.421 million to 22.216 million, both seasonally adjusted (source:
Table A8 from the jobs report).
This was the biggest monthly surge in government workers on record
(excluding the outlier print in June 2020 which was a reversal of the record plunge from the Covid collapse months before).
While government workers soared by the most on record, private workers rose by just 133K, a far more believable number, and one which however would indicate that the recent labor market malaise continues.
What is odd is that while September traditionally sees a huge jump in not seasonally adjusted government workers (as teachers go back to school), the BLS has traditionally smoothed over this jump using seasonal adjustments.
Only not this time, because as the next chart shows, while historically the September adjusted number has been relatively tame, regardless of how large or small the unadjusted number was, this time something changed as the unadjusted number of government workers absolutely exploded by a record 1.322 million leading to a
record September increase in adjusted government workers.
Behind Today's Stunning Jobs Report: A Record Surge In Government Workers | ZeroHedge