Veterans received strikingly good employment news in October as their jobless rate plunged to 2.7%, according to the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employers added 165,000 hires during the month, crushing market estimates that called for 60,000 to 65,000 nonfarm jobs.
The unemployment rate for all veterans dropped sharply from 3.5% in September to 2.7% in October. That improvement outpaced the overall jobless rate, which edged down from 4.2% to 4.1% during the same period.
Veterans from the nation’s post-9/11 generation also saw better employment numbers. Their unemployment rate declined from 4.1% in September to 3.4% in October, the BLS report said.
The report delivered stronger results than forecasters expected across several key measurements. The data was collected in the middle of October, before subsequent political and financial market turmoil altered the broader economic picture.
That later turmoil included historic midterm losses suffered by the Republican Party and a massive stock market selloff Thursday. The Dow dropped more than 1,800 points, while the Nasdaq plunged 5.5% amid a gut check for the artificial intelligence and data center boom.
The selloff erased $2.3 trillion in market value, according to the source report. Markets appeared to stabilize during early trading Friday after Thursday’s sharp losses.
The S&P 500 climbed 72 points, or nearly 1%, during early Friday trading. The move erased losses after the index suffered its worst day since April 2025, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 437 points, or 1.8%.
Hiring gains were especially strong in professional and business services, which added 70,000 jobs. Health care employment increased by another 40,000 jobs, according to the BLS report.
Heather Long, chief economist for the Navy Federal Credit Union, offered an emphatic assessment during a phone interview with Military Times. “It’s a strong report,” Long said. “It’s strong in every dimension.”
Long cautioned that rising prices continued to affect workers even as hiring improved. “Inflation is still wiping out wage gains,” she said, “but more people are coming into the labor force. The big surprise was the hiring in professional and business services,” she said, suggesting professional office jobs could be returning.
Kevin Rasch, a retired Navy Commander and the Warriors to Work Regional Director for the Wounded Warrior Project, said he views government reports cautiously. Still, he told Military Times that Friday’s BLS report reflected some of the success the Wounded Warrior Project was experiencing with job placements.
“We’re still being very successful,” Rasch said. However, he said it remained unclear how the grassroots movement opposing data centers might affect the job market, adding, “It will be interesting to see how that plays out.”
The data center fight has become politically charged. “I hate data centers,” Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, D-Texas, said on CNN Thursday night. “I hate the way they’re taking advantage of Texans.”
President Donald Trump has argued that communities blocking data center construction could cut themselves off from enormous financial opportunities. His warning came as opposition mounted against the server warehouses.
In a Truth Social post Monday, Trump said communities fighting the facilities “want to end up backwards and poor.” He continued, “If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame,” and added, “China could not be happier with the anti- Data Center movement.”
For veterans, however, the October numbers showed substantial progress in a labor market that added far more jobs than analysts anticipated. The 2.7% veteran unemployment rate and 3.4% rate for post-9/11 veterans marked sharp improvements from September.