September’s job gains were revised downward to 297,000 from 336,000.

The economy added 150,00 jobs in October, suggesting a mild slowdown following September’s outsized gain, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

Economists had forecast an increase of 180,000 after September’s surprising 336,000 number that was revised down to 297,000. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, edged up to 3.9% from 3.8% a month earlier.

“The jobs report provides ample evidence of continued normalization in the labor market, with October numbers falling in line with pre-pandemic growth, as well as an expected downward revision to the gains estimated in August and September,” said Noah Yosif, lead labor economist at UKG. “Alongside ongoing deceleration in wage growth, these headline numbers augment the potential for a soft landing, where interest rates prompt a slowdown in job growth, but conditions remain healthy to avoid layoffs and a rise in unemployment.”

Wage gains increased 4.1% year over year, down from 4.2% in September, continuing their steady downward trend.

“Good jobs report from Fed’s point of view. Nonfarm payrolls comes in a bit light, downward revisions to previous 2 months and wage growth on the low end. Good for bond market,” Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, posted on social media.

Experts say the labor market remains strong overall but that employers have shifted some of their focus from simply hiring everyone they can to keeping the workers they have. Companies also are investing in upgrading the skills of their current employees.

“If you look at the numbers they’ve come into line a bit more the last couple months, the unfilled jobs have gone up again. On the margin it feels like it has softened up, but it’s still a mighty hot job market,” says Steve Preston, CEO of Goodwill Industries. “The unmet need (for workers) is felt across the sectors.”

“We are hearing a lot more from people on retention and developing your own workforce,” Preston added.

Experts also say that workers have become less interested in shifting jobs than they were coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People are staying, I think it is more of a result of the economy, what we’re seeing is employees are more concerned about stability,” says Geno Cutolo, head of Adecco North America.

As the job market has normalized, pressure on firms to keep raising compensation has also eased, says Scott Hamilton, global managing director of Gallagher’s human resources and compensation practice.

“Over the past 18 months or so a lot of that movement was from the perspective of the base wage, that’s cooled down a lot,” Hamilton says. “A lot of our clients are working on changing the workplace environment,” in terms of more flexibility and work-life balance.

The Federal Reserve has been looking to the labor market for signs it has reached a better balance between supply and demand than a year ago. Chairman Jerome Powell noted that the labor market has remained strong even as interest rates have risen at a sharp pace over the past year.

“We’ve been able to achieve, you know, pretty significant progress on inflation without seeing the kind of increase in unemployment that has been very typical of rate-hiking cycles like this one,” he said. “So that’s a historically unusual and very welcome result.”

The number of job openings, while still high, has fallen from its peak of 12 million to 9.6 million. Various private surveys have shown the amount of postings on online job sites has slowed significantly this year. And wages have moderated over the past year.

Labor force participation, a measure of how many people are working or seeking work, has also risen to 62.7% from 62.2% a year ago. And the percentage of prime-age workers, those 25 to 54, is at the highest level in two decades.

“Our real-time data shows that in many sectors, especially blue collar and tech, the market is finding balance,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president and chief commercial officer of Manpower Group. “The post-pandemic hiring frenzy and summer hiring warmth has cooled and companies are now holding onto employees. The tech sector is cooling from its hyper growth too, although there’s still demand for some highly skilled positions including app developers, cyber security experts and data analysts.”