November 2016 employment: US adds 178,000 jobs

The Employment Situation‘ report released by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in the United States decreased by 0.3% to 4.6%, while the economy added 178,000 jobs, in November. The U.S. unemployment rate is the lowest since 2007, with major gains in professional and business services and in health care. The number of unemployed persons declined by 387,000 to 7.4 million. However, the civilian labor force participation rate (62.7%) is at a 40-year low – 95 million Americans are not in the workforce. Additionally, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) remained high at 5.7 million last month. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. Overall, job growth appears to be slowing down. In 2016, employment growth has averaged 180,000 jobs per month. This compares with an average monthly increase of 229,000 jobs per month in 2015. The report revised the change in September from 191,000 jobs added to 208,000 jobs added and the change in October from 161,000 jobs added to 142,000 jobs added. With these revisions, employment gains in September and October were 2,000 less than previously reported.]]>