US Economy Adds 64,000 Jobs In November, Unemployment Ticks Up

Employers reportedly added 64,000 jobs in November and unemployment ticked up to 4.6%.

The Details: The Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Tuesday showed a 0.2% uptick in unemployment, and said the 64,000 total nonfarm payroll employment has shown little net change since April. The report showed 5.5 million people employed part time for economic reasons in November, an increase of 909,000 from September. Employment in health care and construction rose the most, while federal government employment declined by 6,000, following a loss of 162,000 in October.

For Context: The report, originally scheduled for December 5, was delayed due to the 43-day government shutdown. The October jobs report was not released at all due to the shutdown, which left economists to rely on private sector data which showed job cuts for the month were the highest October cuts since 2003. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.25 percentage points on December 10, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the cut was partially due to the possibility that US job gains have been overestimated throughout the year.

How The Media Covered It: Outlets on the left like Bloomberg (Lean Left bias) and NBC News (Lean Left) tended to highlight the decline in federal government employment as "a reason to worry," saying "nonfarm payrolls have swung wildly thanks to the Department of Government Efficiency's deferred resignation program." According to Bloomberg, the "not great" labor market may be moving to "outright bad," and said due to the "shutdown theatrics of the Washington political class" we will have to wait for "a more definitive diagnosis."  Outlets on the right like the Washington Examiner (Lean Right), chose instead to highlight the addition of 64,000 jobs, mentioning the Trump administrations blame for the uptick in unemployment on the federal workers that are now looking for another job. Fortune (Center) called the jobs data "frozen," saying the "job market hasn't collapsed, but is no longer overheating, snapping back, or even cooling in a conventional sense. It's simply stuck."    

Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Support our mission. Suggest an improvement to this summary.