Businesses add 21,000 jobs in November, hiring stalls

In November, job growth stalled with employers adding a disappointing 210,000 jobs, the Labor Department said. This represents a sharp slowdown from October when companies added more than twice that number of new hires. Economists had forecast that employers had hired around 535,000 workers last month. As more Americans return to work, the Labor Department says that the unemployment rate fell from 4.6% to 4.2%. 

The labor participation rate has edged up to 61.8% which is the most since 2020 when the pandemic started. Millions of Americans have been slow to return to the job market, with nearly 4.7 million fewer people in the labor force than prior to the pandemic. Employers are raising wages to attract more candidates, but still, some workers are hesitant to return to work due to the high number of covid 19 cases in the country. 

Daniel Zhao, senior economist at an employment site says, "Even though Delta is off its September peak, cases are still very high, and that might have impacted COVID-sensitive industries like retail and hospitality." The surveys for the November job report were taken before the reports of the Omicron virus surfaced in Africa. But the new strain of covid 19 has the potential to create headwinds for the job market in December and later. 

Source: CBS News