The most recent national jobs report, released days before Election Day, shows 263,000 positions added to the economy in October.

The unemployment rate remained steady at 3.8% and average hourly earnings rose by 0.3%, according to the report. The annual wage growth was at 4.2% while some sectors, like transportation and warehousing, saw job losses, according to CNBC.

Overall, the labor market remains strong, but there is slower growth due to ongoing labor strikes in key sectors — including automotive and healthcare which disrupted job creation, according to WKOW.

The report highlights uncertainty in the job market, particularly in industries affected by strikes, with broader implications for voters ahead of the election, according to WKOW.

Sonia Shahzad, a senior at the University of Wisconsin, said she is trying to make sense of the job market as she prepares to graduate.

“I feel fairly confident I’ll get a job within this or next year, but it depends on job trends,” Shahzad said. “If they’re positive, I’d be more confident … While the job market has been robust under Biden, ‘price stability’ has been terrible. Even if I get a job, economic instability will make it hard to be independent.”

President-elect Donald Trump inherited former President Barack Obama’s economy in his first term, and the unemployment rate continued to decrease while the GDP rose, according to ABC News. But, the unemployment rate rose rapidly in Trump’s last year of office due to COVID-19, according to ABC News. 

UW professor of political methodology and American politics Alexander Tahk said the changes Trump’s administration will have on the job market are unknown.

“My impression is that Trump didn’t have a huge impact on the job market during his first term,” Tahk said. “In general, the President doesn’t have a large direct effect on the job market, especially outside of major economic crises.”

A second term would likely not be very different from Trump’s first term, Tahk said. If Trump were to implement extreme policies like multiple 20% tariffs, that could have some impact, but large economic policy changes like that are hard to implement, Tahk said.

Historically, presidential administrations influence the economy through policy shifts, but those changes often manifest more gradually, Tahk said.

“Every new presidential administration brings shifts in policy that affect hiring practices, but especially in today’s polarized climate, the changes are more subtle,” Tahk said. “We’re seeing some effects, but nothing as dramatic as past legislative changes.”

The effects of political polarization on policy making are already evident, as gridlock and disagreement over key issues have made it harder to enact major reforms, according to research from Penn State University.

“Polarization definitely makes things more difficult, but it’s something we’ve experienced for a while,” Tahk said. “It’s hard to separate out the effects, but political polarization does make it harder to enact large policy changes. Whether that would have implications for the job market is uncertain.”

Shahzad said the uncertainty about how the political climate will shift in the coming months adds another layer of complexity as she looks toward her future. Trump’s first term was shaped by Obama’s economic policies, but now the economy isn’t as stable, she said.

“The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 gave permanent corporate cuts but temporary individual ones,” Shahzad said. “I’m curious if Trump will make personal cuts permanent or let them expire. It doesn’t change my career path, but it creates hurdles I’d like to avoid.”

Under Trump’s leadership, the administration pursued aggressive deregulation, tax cuts and policies aimed at bringing back U.S. manufacturing jobs, according to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

According to Tahk, policy changes at the federal level can affect the hiring practices of employers, but the degree of influence varies depending on the type of change.

Tahk said that while major policy shifts like civil rights legislation or changes to tax laws can have dramatic effects on hiring practices, the current political climate does not seem to offer the same level of seismic policy changes that would reshape the entire labor market.

“There are certainly policy questions now that affect hiring practices, but I don’t see any of that on the scale of, say, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned racial discrimination in hiring,” Tahk said. “The changes we’re seeing now are more incremental.”

Much of the speculation about the job market under a second Trump term is, at this stage, hypothetical, Tahk said. The effects of any new policies won’t be clear until they are actually implemented, he said.