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Expectations heading into this morning showed projections of about 190,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in November. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market managed to do just a little better than that. CNBC reported:
Job creation showed little signs of a let-up in November, as payrolls grew even faster than expected and the unemployment rate fell despite signs of a weakening economy. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 199,000 for the month, slightly better than the 190,000 Dow Jones estimate and ahead of the October gain of 150,000, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, inched lower, from 3.9% to 3.7%. As things stand, the jobless rate hasn’t been above 4% in two years.
In terms of overall job growth, with revisions from September and October factored in, we’ve now seen roughly 2.55 million jobs created so far this year — and that’s after 11 months, not the entire calendar year.
As for the politics, let’s circle back to previous coverage to put the data in perspective. Over the course of the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency — when the Republican said the United States’ economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.35 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the latest tally, the U.S. economy has created roughly 14.6 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years.
In recent months, Republicans have responded to developments like these by pretending not to notice them. No one should be surprised if GOP officials keep the trend going today.
For some additional context, consider job growth by year over the past decade:
2013: 2.3 million
2014: 3 million
2015: 2.7 million
2016: 2.3 million
2017: 2.1 million
2018: 2.3 million
2019: 2 million
2020: -9.3 million
2021: 7.3 million
2022: 4.8 million
2023 (so far): 2.55 million
This post updates our related earlier coverage.