The US added 227,000 jobs in November, with 54,000 added jobs in healthcare, 53,000 leisure and hospitality jobs, and 33,000 government jobs added in the month.
The unemployment rate increased to 4.2%, from 4.1% in October.
The final jobs report of 2024 was released prior to the December meeting of the Federal Reserve. The Fed is expected to cut interest rates for the third time in 2024 given softening inflation and a slowdown in the jobs market.
The latest report follow October’s disappointing tally. Ahead of election day the labor department announced the US had added only 12,000 jobs in the month. Two hurricanes and a strike of 33,000 workers at Boeing affected the jobs report, which was far below the projected estimate of 120,000 jobs. October’s report was the weakest month for job growth in the US since December 2020.
The Boeing strike ended last month and the November jobs report was expected to show a rebound from October, as 32,000 jobs were added in transportation equipment manufacturing. Although hurricane impacts are still being felt by businesses, jobs in repair and renovation work were expected to offset them.
“The Biden administration is handing off a rock-solid labor market after their strategic investments strengthened our economy and ushered in the fastest recession recovery on record,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the progressive economic advocacy non-profit Groundwork Collaborative, in a statement in response to the jobs report. “President-elect Trump would do well to continue to invest in the workers and communities that have powered this resilience. But if he pursues trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy and implements the proposals to slash public investments that people like Musk have championed, the labor market will surely deteriorate and workers will suffer the consequences of these choices.”
On Wednesday ADP, the US’s largest payroll supplier, said companies added 146,000 jobs in October, less than economists had expected. ADP’s chief economist, Nela Richardson, said: “Manufacturing was the weakest we’ve seen since spring. Financial services and leisure and hospitality were also soft.”
November’s job report is the penultimate reading on the labor market before Donald Trump assumes the presidency. Economists are already parsing the impact of Trump’s proposed policies on hiring.
“One big source of uncertainty in the November data is the impact of Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportation. The reference week was after the election, so there may already be some effect showing up in the data,” said Dean Baker, economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), in a blog post on what to expect in the November jobs report.
“It is likely that the October data already reflected the sharp decrease in immigration at the start of the summer. The data are highly erratic, and not seasonally adjusted, but the increase in the employment of foreign-born workers in the three months ending in October was just 89,000. That compares to 328,000 for the three months ending in October 2023, and 768,000 for October of 2022.”
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