Did the Job Market Slow in November? Here’s How It Compares

U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs, the unemployment rate held at a 49-year low and hourly wage gains remained near a postrecession high in November.

The number of jobs has grown by 1.7% over the past year. Despite a somewhat slower month for job growth in November, the figure has mostly held steady in recent months.

Wage growth has been slowly trending upward, but weekly pay took a step back in this month’s report. In October, weekly wage gains had been up at a 3.4% rate from a year earlier. This month that gain fell back to 2.8%.

The share of Americans who are working or looking for work has changed little over the past five years. That trend continued in this month’s report with the labor-force participation rate unchanged at 62.9%. The employment-to-population ratio was also unchanged in November.

For workers age 25 to 54, when education or retirement aren’t as big of an influence on decisions to work, labor-force participation and employment-to-population rates are much higher. The figures were little changed, though, in November.

The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7% and broader measures of unemployment were mixed. The rate that includes discouraged workers who have stopped looking for work declined slightly, but the broadest measure of underemployment, which includes part-time workers who want full-time jobs, rose in November.

Unemployment rates rose slightly in November for workers with at least some college education, and fell slightly for workers without. During the recession, college-educated workers faced far lower unemployment rates, but as the economy has improved the gap has narrowed.

Unemployment rates have trended downward across race and gender groups. The unemployment rate for black men matched its lowest reading on record.

The median duration of unemployment lasted 8.9 weeks, matching the lowest reading since 2008.

This year is on course to be the third-best for job growth of the current expansion. In the first 11 months, 2018 has added fewer jobs than in 2014 and 2015, but is ahead of all other years dating back to 2006.

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from Real Time Economics https://ift.tt/2rlRL5A