The labor market added 227,000 jobs, a big rebound from October, when storms in the Southeast and a major strike disrupted work. The unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 4.2 percent.
Job creation bounced back in November after disruptions from storms and a major strike, reinforcing an employment picture of modest expansion over the past few months.
The economy added 227,000 jobs last month, seasonally adjusted, the Labor Department reported on Friday. Revisions to the prior two months added 56,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2 percent, from 4.1 percent in October.
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Wages come in hot: Average hourly earnings rose a higher-than-expected 0.4 percent over the month, which is surprising in part because so many of the jobs added were in hurricane-impacted sectors that have lower-than-average pay.
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Labor force participation steady: The share of people between the ages of 25 and 54 who were working or looking for work in November remained at 83.5 percent, which is down from a cycle high of 84 percent over the summer.
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Retail looks weak: After adding essentially no jobs over the past year, the retail sector shed 28,000 positions, probably reflecting lower-than-normal hiring for the busy holiday season.
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Lost jobs restored: About 37,000 workers — most of them at Boeing — ended strikes after the October survey, adding a tailwind to the latest report. Major storms were also a factor also in October, with more than half a million workers saying they were absent because of bad weather; the number in November was just 62,000.
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A glass-half-full view: Gus Faucher, chief economist at the PNC Financial Services Group, said the underlying pace of job growth was as good as could be expected this far into an expansion. “I don’t want to say that we’ve definitely achieved a soft landing, but certainly we think this is what a soft landing looks like,” he said.
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And a glass-half-empty take: Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, still sees a downward trajectory. “It’s decent, but it’s nothing to get too excited about,” she said of job growth. “We’re not seeing it fall apart by any means, but I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the soft patch just yet.”
