The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor and Statistics released the November jobs report showing since of economic growth.
Excluding farm labor, payroll employment increased by 321,000 in November while the national unemployment rate stayed at 5.8 percent; many of these jobs were in professional and business services, healthcare, manufacturing, trade and retail. Employment year-to-date has risen 2.65 million jobs for a rate of about 2 percent per year.
The field of professional and business services increased the most with 86,000 jobs added; included in this number was a 16,000 job increase in accounting and bookkeeping services and 23,000 job increase in temporary help services.
In the healthcare field, 29,000 jobs were added with 7,000 in physician’s offices, 5,000 in home healthcare services and 4,000 each in the categories of outpatient care centers and hospitals. In financial industries, 20,000 jobs were added, half of which were in insurance and related activities.
Retail trade jobs rose 50,000 with 11,000 of these jobs were in clothing and accessory stores and 9,000 in sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores; many of these jobs can be contributed to seasonal employment. Additionally, there were 27,000 jobs added in food and drinking services.
There was a gain of 28,000 manufacturing jobs, 17,000 of which were in durable manufacturing jobs and 11,000 in nondurable goods, mainly in plastic and rubber production. Construction employment rose 20,000 during the month and in the transportation and warehousing industry, employment increased by 17,000.
Over the course of 2014, national unemployment rates dropped 1.2 percent and the number of unemployed individuals dropped 1.7 million. The civilian labor force participation rate has not changed since April and stands at 62.8 percent. The employment-population ratio stands unchanged at 59.2 percent and has risen 0.6 percent over the course of this year.
In November, the tally for discouraged workers was 698,000, about the same rate as the previous year; these individuals are not currently looking for work out of the belief that there are not jobs for them available.
The average workweek among all non-farm, private payrolls is up, meaning that employees are working more hours at a rate of 0.1 hour per week for a total of 34.6 hours. Additionally, these workers saw a collective 9 cent increase average hourly earnings.
Of note, many of the industries that have added jobs are pay typically higher than the minimum wage.
