November Jobs Report – The Numbers

Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Unemployment Rate

4.1%

The jobless rate in November was unchanged from a month earlier at 4.1%. The rate matched the lowest level since December 2000. Though the November unemployment rate is unlikely to change Federal Reserve officials’ expected decision to raise interest rates at their December meeting next week, it could influence how aggressively the central bank decides to pursue rate increases in 2018.

Payroll Growth

228,000

The U.S. economy added 228,000 jobs in November, marking the 86th consecutive month employers added to payrolls. Leisure and hospitality, the sector most affected by late-summer hurricanes, added 14,000 jobs last month, a sharp pullback from the 104,000 the sector recovered in October. Employment in construction, manufacturing and health care continued to trend upward.

Wages

2.5%

November’s 2.5% year-over-year increase in average hourly earnings remained subdued, despite a historically low unemployment rate. On the month, wages rose by a nickel in November after falling by 3 cents in the prior month. October wage-growth figures may have been held down by an influx of low-wage restaurant and bar workers re-entering the workforce after hurricanes had ravaged employment in these areas a month earlier.

Participation Rate

62.7%

Workforce participation was steady at 62.7% in November. The labor-force participation rate bottomed out in September 2015, after a 15-year decline, and has stabilized over the last couple of years. An aging population could keep labor force participation from rising much more.

Broader Measure

8%

A broad measure of unemployment and underemployment known as the U-6, which includes people stuck in part-time jobs and others, ticked up to 8% in November. Though the November rate is up from October’s decade-low reading of 7.9%, it’s still well below summer levels of 8.6%. This broader unemployment measure has fallen this year in tandem with the narrower unemployment rate known as the U-3.

from Real Time Economics http://ift.tt/2AK72AS