A Better Way To Think About November’s Jobs Numbers

You’ve probably seen some headlines today about the latest unemployment rate (3.5 percent) or others saying 266,000 jobs were added in November. Those are the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report, published this morning, that get the bulk of the media coverage. And that makes a certain amount of sense — they are important measures of our economy’s health and inform policymakers: Keeping the unemployment rate stable is one of the Federal Reserve’s goals when setting interest rates.

But without the right context, they’re a bit misleading. Let’s start with job growth.