November 2010 Employment Report

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The U.S. economy added only 39,000 nonfarm jobs in November. Much of that gain was made possible because October’s initial estimate was revised from +172,000 to +151,000. Because of October’s weak showing, the official unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage point, to 9.8 percent.

So far this year, payrolls have expanded by 937,000 jobs (1.16 million in the private sector), but that came after the nation lost more than 8 million jobs in 2008 and 2009. As we have indicated repeatedly, at least 100,000 jobs need to be created each month just to keep up with population growth. Since nonfarm employment bottomed out last December, job creation has averaged about 85,1000 per month. Thus, the pace of hiring will have to increase dramatically to not only keep up with new workers entering the work force for the first time, but also to once again make those 7+ million still-displaced workers productive.
 

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After seasonal and other adjustments, public sector employment shrank, but those losses were concentrated at the local level; governments at the state and federal levels added employees.
 

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In terms of the change from peak non-farm employment, the U.S. economy is very nearly back to where it stood in May 2010.

Other results from the report include:

• Full-time employment shrank by another 478,000 jobs in November. More than half of the full-time jobs gained back between December 2009 and May 2010 have been lost once again.
• Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs rose by 390,000 to 9.5 million. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed at 6.3 million and accounted for 41.9 percent of the unemployed. 
• The civilian labor force participation rate held at 64.5 percent in November, and the employment-population ratio was essentially unchanged at 58.2 percent. 
• The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons was little changed at 9.0 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.
• About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, up from 2.3 million a year earlier. These individuals were not in the labor force, but wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey.
•  Among the marginally attached, there were 1.3 million discouraged workers in November, an increase of 421,000 from a year earlier. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.2 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey. 
• The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls held at 34.3 hours. The manufacturing workweek for all employees also was unchanged, at 40.3 hours, and factory overtime remained at 3.1 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls decreased by 0.1 hour to 33.5 hours.
•  Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by one cent to $22.75. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.6 percent. In November, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees were unchanged at $19.19.