Unemployment Rate Rises to 9.8%
The Washington Post reports:
After three months of holding steady, the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in November, with payroll employment showing little growth, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
The jump is another sign of weakness in the nation's economic recovery. The monthly report dashed the expectations of economists, many of whom had predicted much more robust job growth.
Instead, while nonfarm payroll employment climbed 172,000 in October, the report said, it rose by only 39,000 in November.
The news also punctures some of the optimism that had been building because of other recent positive signs in the economy: Pending home sales jumped a surprising 10 percent; sales by U.S. automakers climbed by double-digit percentages; and many of the nation's largest retailers reported better-than-expected sales last month.
Nevertheless, the unemployment report depicted an economy that was faltering, even weakening in its ability to add jobs.
The most significant job losses were in manufacturing and construction. Some of the biggest job gains were in health care. The unemployment rate among adults with a high school education or less is double or triple that for workers with a bachelor's degree.
The slowdown in job growth suggests that it could be more than a year before the unemployment rate dips back down to relatively normal levels.
The Social Security Administration estimates the United States will have to add at least 200,000 jobs a month to push unemployment below 8 percent by 2012, assuming that the rate of people joining the workforce remains steady.
