Americans grew more concerned about the broader labor market even as they became more confident they could find another job after losing their current position. The perceived probability that unemployment will rise over the next year climbed 1.4 percentage points to 45.3% in October, the highest since April 2020, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Survey of Consumer Expectations. The increase was driven by respondents without a college degree. The perceived probability of finding another job rose to 46.5%, the highest in about a year, while the perceived probability of losing a job edged up 0.4 percentage point to 13.9%. The mixed outlook comes as employers added a surprisingly robust 165,000 jobs in October and unemployment held between 4% and 4.2% for five consecutive months, including a 4.1% reading in the October report. Yet 2 million Americans had been unemployed for at least six months, representing more than 25% of all unemployed workers, and the average unemployment spell reached 27.1 weeks, the longest since December 2021 and, excluding the pandemic, the highest since August 2016. One-year inflation expectations held at 3.9%, three-year expectations at 3.3% and five-year expectations at 3%. Expectations for gasoline-price growth fell to 4.2%, while food-price expectations remained at 5.5%; projected increases rose to 9.3% for medical care, 7.6% for college education and 7.7% for rent. Home-price growth expectations stayed at 3%, earnings-growth expectations at 2.6%, and household-income growth expectations edged down to 3%. Views of current finances improved slightly, while expectations for finances a year ahead and access to credit were unchanged. Prediction-market pricing for at least one Federal Reserve rate hike in 2026 fell from 24% to 20.5% over 24 hours. Investors will watch unemployment and inflation data, Federal Open Market Committee meetings and comments from Federal Reserve officials for clues on policy.