It’s been a noisy couple of months for the labor market, with strikes and hurricanes deflating job creation. The question is this: How much of the stall-out in October was due to one-off events, and how much was evidence of a more fundamental slowdown?

A partial answer may arrive on Friday, when the Labor Department issues its employment report for November. The month’s job growth is set to benefit from some 33,000 Boeing employees returning to work and the Southeast recovering from two major storms.

The median forecast among Bloomberg’s survey of economists is for the report to show a gain of 215,000 jobs — a stark contrast to the initial October figure of 12,000 — with the unemployment rate staying at 4.1 percent.

That would bring the average growth for the last three months to 150,000 jobs, pending any revisions, only slightly less than the average from March to August. It adds up to a picture of a remarkably steady labor market, though employers are creating just enough jobs to soak up the number of people entering the labor force.

That number has slowed in recent months, as fewer migrants have been crossing the border and labor force participation for people in their prime working years has flattened after reaching highs not seen in decades.

The rate at which people quit their jobs ticked upward in October, as did the number of job openings. But the hiring rate dropped and remains substantially below prepandemic levels. If November’s job growth comes in weaker than expected, that sluggishness could be a reason, said Thomas Simons, a U.S. economist at the investment bank Jefferies.

“We know there are just not that many people looking for work,” he said. “So it would stand to reason that we’d get a number that’s quite a bit softer than what we’ve come to expect for the last 12 to 18 months.”