U.S. Added Only 100k Jobs in Last Six Months

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its initial estimates for November’s job growth. Nationally, employers added a total of 64,000 jobs for the month, but other details in the report pointed towards a weakening labor market as the year ends.

The unemployment rate increased to 4.6%, the highest in more than four years. In the last six months, the U.S. has only created a total of 100,000 new jobs. During normal periods of economic growth, the job market would eclipse that total practically every month rather than taking half a year to achieve it.

Broadly, the private sector has performed better than the overall total. Through the first 11 months of the year, the private sector added 766,000 jobs while the government lost 156,000 jobs.

Within those subsets, health care added 400,000 of the private sector jobs on a year-to-date basis, meaning growth was less than spectacular for most other industries. The federal government lost 268,000 jobs, but it was partially offset by local governments adding 147,000 jobs so far this year.

As usual, the report is subject to further revisions, but the softness in the labor market is undeniable at this point. Fed Chair Jerome Powell recently noted that the job numbers reported could be overestimated by 60,000 per month.

Explore our webpage for more insights and resources:
https://bit.ly/Radix_Website