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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 210,000 in November, and the unemployment rate fell from 4.6 percent in October to 4.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. The headline number was well below Wall Street expectations of 573,000 jobs, according to CNBC. Notable job gains occurred in the professional and business services, transportation and warehousing, construction and manufacturing employment sectors. Meanwhile, employment in retail trade declined by 20,400 in November from the prior month, according to BLS. Employment in leisure and hospitality changed little in November (+23,000), following large gains earlier in the year. The leisure and hospitality sector has added 2.4 million jobs thus far in 2021, but employment in the industry is down by 1.3 million, or 7.9 percent, since February 2020. Health care employment was relatively unchanged in November (+2,000). Within the industry, employment in ambulatory health care services continued to trend up (+17,000), while nursing and residential care facilities lost 11,000 jobs. Employment in health care is down by 450,000 since February 2020, with nursing and residential care facilities accounting for nearly all of the loss. In November, employment showed little change in other major industries, including mining, wholesale …

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. economy added 531,000 jobs in October and the unemployment rate dropped by 20 basis points to 4.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday. These figures are better than what economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected with an increase of only 450,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, according to CNBC. October’s unemployment numbers are much improved from September, which had total job gains that were revised upward from 194,000 to 312,000. October’s numbers outgained August as well, which had job gains revised up from 235,000 to 483,000. Since the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020, nonfarm employment has risen by 18.2 million but remains down by 4.2 million from its level before the pandemic started, according to the BLS. The highest job gains in October were in the leisure and hospitality sectors with 164,000 jobs added. In the year 2021, leisure and hospitality regained 2.4 million job positions lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the gains in employment, the sector is still down by 1.4 million jobs, or 8.2 percent, from Feb. 2020. The second highest job gains for the month were in professional and business services, which …

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. economy added 194,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate dropped by 40 basis points to 4.8 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had predicted there to be an increase of 500,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent, according to CNBC. In addition, the total job gains for August were revised upward from 235,000 to 366,000. These numbers from the past two months were much lower than in June, which had employment numbers revised up to 1.05 million. Nonfarm employment has risen by 17.4 million since April 2020 but is 5 million below (or 3.3 percent) from its pre-pandemic level in February 2020, according to the BLS. There were notable job gains in September in the leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade and transportation and warehousing industries. Leisure and hospitality employment rose by 74,000, but is still down by 1.6 million (9.4 percent) from February 2020. Professional and business services added 60,000 jobs last month but is still 385,000 below what it was pre-pandemic. Retail trade employment increased by 56,000 jobs and transportation and warehousing jobs rose by 47,000. Public education jobs …