WASHINGTON – Employers shed 11,000 jobs in November, the smallest monthly job decline in two years, as the unemployment rate inched down to 10.0% signaling that the worst post-WWII recession may be over, the Labor Department reported today.
Job losses in construction, manufacturing and information industries were offset by temporary help services and health care.
Economists polled by Thomson Reuters expected employers to shed 130,000 jobs and for the unemployment rate to remain 10.2%, according to the median estimate.
Manufacturing employers shed 41,000 jobs while the service providing sector added 58,000 jobs. Professional and business services added 86,000.
Payrolls for October were revised to a decline of 111,000 from a 190,000 decline initially reported. The September figure was also revised to a decline of 139,000 nonfarm payroll jobs from a decline of 219,000 reported last month.
Average hourly earnings increased to $18.74 from $18.73 in October. The average work week increased to 33.2 hours from 33.0 in October.
Economists expected average hourly earnings to be unchanged in November and for the average work week to decline to 32.9 hours, according to the median Thomson Reuters estimate.
Revised third quarter productivity figures, released Thursday by the Labor Department, showed productivity jumped 8.1%, the largest increase in six years. The productivity jump in the third quarter of 2003 led to a peak in unemployment during that quarter and a return to job growth, economists said.
The first quarter of an economic recovery tends to have strong productivity figures “because people delay a bit in hiring,” said David Wyss, Standard & Poor’s chief economist. “This time they seem to be lagging more than usual,” he said.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said yesterday that unemployment is the “biggest [and] most difficult challenge we face right now.”
Economists said the Fed will not raise interest rates until unemployment peaks.
“My feeling is the Fed won’t raise interest rates until you see unemployment coming down, which means I don’t think it’s going to happen until the second half of next year.”
Members of Congress and the Obama Administration have expressed impatience with unemployment. On Thursday, President Barack Obama held a jobs summit at the White House to find solutions to the unemployment problem while some members of Congress are considering crafting a job-creation bill.
Bernanke on Thursday cautioned against another stimulus package. He told members of the Senate Banking Committee that it is "early" to consider more fiscal spending while the full effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have not hit the economy.
