Latest report shows U.S. added 155,000 jobs in November

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy added 155,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department reported. That’s fewer than expected, but the unemployment rate remained steady at 3.7 percent.

October’s jobs numbers were also revised down slightly, to put the monthly average over the past year at about 204,000 jobs, and the average over the last quarter at 170,000.

“President Trump’s policies continue to fuel strong and steady job growth. Two full years since the president’s election, 4.6 million jobs have been created, including 155,000 in November,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta said.

Acosta added job gains were significant in manufacturing, transportation and warehousing.

“The unemployment rate of 3.7 percent in November marked the first time since 1969 that the unemployment rate has not exceeded 3.7 percent for three straight months,” Acosta said. “For an astonishing seven months this year, the unemployment rate has been below 4.0 percent. Last month matched a record low, set earlier this year, for the African-American unemployment rate.

“Wage gains remain steady. Paychecks are growing. Parts of the United States continue to recover from devastation caused by wildfires in California and last week’s earthquake in Alaska.

The report is a sign of a slowing but still strong labor market — and further support for the idea that the Federal Reserve may hold off hiking interest rates over the next year as quickly or as much as initially planned.

That’s reassuring to investors who had been worried that the Fed would move too fast to cool off an already decelerating economy.

“My reaction is a sigh of relief,” said Leo Grohowski, chief Investment Officer at BNY Mellon Wealth Management. “I think a mild miss is more than acceptable in order to help the Fed understand that multiple rate increases may not be warranted for 2019.”

Paychecks grew by 3.1 percent over the last year, a relatively robust number that is in line with expectations as employers have had to fight to attract workers in recent months.

The percentage of people participating in the labor force remained the same, and the median number of weeks people remained unemployed dropped from 9.4 to 8.9 weeks in November, suggesting that people are getting jobs more quickly after losing them.

However, the number of people “marginally attached” to the labor force — those who had looked for a job in the past year but stopped in the past month because they couldn’t find one — has risen by nearly 200,000 over the past year. The percentage of people working part-time who would rather work full-time also rose slightly.

Despite high demand for workers in some sectors, that may show that people who want jobs increasingly aren’t in the places where employers need them — and that the economy still has room to expand before running out of workers entirely.

The strongest job growth came in health care, transportation and warehousing, and manufacturing, which added another 27,000 jobs for 288,000 total growth over the past year. Tariffs and fears of a larger trade war may not be having a huge positive impact, but they’re definitely not choking the sector either.

Terry Lewis contributed to this report.