November Surprise: Job Loss Eases

In a sign that the U.S. economy’s two-year job-molting cycle might be coming to an end, the Labor Department reported Friday that just 11,000 American jobs were lost in November and that the unemployment rate had fallen back to 10 percent. —JCL

The New York Times:

In the strongest employment report since the recession began nearly two years ago, the government said Friday that the nation’s employers had all but stopped shedding jobs in November, taking some of the pressure off of President Obama to come up with a wide-ranging jobs creation program.

The Labor Department reported that the United States economy lost 11,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate fell to 10 percent, down from 10.2 percent in October.

The government also significantly revised its September and October job loss estimates. September’s data was adjusted to show a loss of 139,000 jobs instead of 219,000, and in October 111,000 jobs were lost, instead of 190,000. Even allowing for the November loss, the revisions added 148,000 people to the list of those employed in the United States in November.

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wfxl.com

Revised estimates for September and October were also released, showing far fewer jobs lost than previously reported for those months.