The Department of Labor added 2.16m people were already collecting weekly unemployment benefits, known as continuing claims, in the week to 21 November, a 6,000 increase from the prior week. While the “official” unemployment rate dropped to 5.0 percent for the month, this is misleading in that it does not include all people who are not working.
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Just as upbeat, the employment gains for September and October were revised up from 137,000 to 145,000 and from 271,000 to 298,000, respectively. The BLS defines U-6 as “total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force”, plus all marginally attached workers.
Fed policy makers will use jobs data to help them decide whether they should raise their benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2006. It’s expected to go lower in the months ahead. “Everything says that labor markets are tightening”.
The Cariboo had the highest unemployment rate, with 7.1 per cent. Government employment has shrunk by more than half a million workers, or about 2.5 percent.
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For the week ending November 28, the number of new jobless claims climbed to 269,000. The exceptionally low level of consumer price inflation means that the slow rate of nominal wage growth translates into a healthy rate of real wage improvement. The participation rate of Americans 16 and older edged up 0.1 point in November but still remains 3.5 percentage points below its level before the Great Recession. The recent uptrend in nominal earnings growth is an encouraging sign for the labor market, but because nominal earnings often grow between 3 and 4 percent during expansions, there is more work to do to boost wages as the recovery continues. The Labor Department noted that jobless claims data for Louisiana were estimated for the third week in a row due to computer issues. In a fourth report, the US Commerce Department said new orders for manufactured goods increased 1.5 percent after two straight months of declines, on rising demand for transportation equipment and a range of other goods.
