Statement on the November Employment Report
Today’s upbeat jobs news is, simply put, really good news. Yes, the sharp dip in unemployment from 7.3 percent in October to 7.0 percent in November, with gains of 203,000 nonfarm jobs, reflects in part the return of furloughed federal workers and those whose jobs depend on them. But the November gains were so substantial, because the government shutdown obscured steady improvements in the jobs market through both October and November. That’s why the jobless rate dropped three-tenths of a percent even as labor force participation rose, average working hours increased, and the number of part-time workers who want full-time work declined steeply. And this is the second encouraging report in two days—we found out yesterday that GDP grew at a 3.6 percent rate in the third quarter. All of this helps explain why the largest employment gains last month came not in government, but in consumer-sensitive areas including manufacturing, health care and transportation and warehousing.