November Employment and Unemployment: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report today on payroll employment and unemployment for November (summary available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). Highlights of the report:

Unemployment Rate

• The unemployment rate fell to 8.6% in November, from 9.0% in October. 
• The number of long-term unemployed (those unemployed for 27 weeks or longer) declined to 5.7 million in November, from 5.9 million in October.  The percent of long-term unemployed edged up to 43.0% in November, from 42.4% in October. 
• The labor force fell by 315,000 in November, following gains of 181,000 in October and 423,000 in September.  The labor force participation rate edged down to 64.0% in November, from 64.2% in October. 
• The number of unemployed persons edged down to 13.3 million in November, from 13.9 million in October.

Payroll Employment

• Total non-farm payroll employment rose by 120,000 in November, following gains of 100,000 in October (revised upwards from 80,000) and 210,000 in September (revised upwards from 158,000). 
  • The gain of 120,000 was in line with expectations, but fell just short of the 130,000 new jobs needed to keep up with population growth.  The relatively low level of job gains accompanied by the large decline in the unemployment rate can be explained in part by the 315,000 decline in the labor force as well as the fact that the two measures—the unemployment rate and payroll job gains—come from different surveys.    
  • Private sector employment rose by 140,000 while government employment fell by 20,000.
  • The largest private sector employment gains came from retail trade (+50,000), professional and business services (+33,000), leisure and hospitality (+22,000), and health care (+17,000).  The largest losses were in government (-24,000) and construction (-20,000). 
  • The average workweek for all private nonfarm employees was unchanged at 34.3 hours.