Environmental Career Center – Helping people work for a better environment since 1980

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports today (December 7) that private employers added 146,000 jobs in November with the unemployment rate dropping to 7.7%.  Many economists expected the  new employment number to be impacted negatively by Hurricane Sandy, BLS analysts  said Superstorm Sandy had only a minimal effect on the figures and “did not substantively impact the national employment and unemployment estimates for November”.  September and October jobs numbers were revised down by 49,000 jobs.

This is the 33rd straight month of positive job growth.  125,000 jobs are needed each month to keep up with growth in the potential labor force.  Government employment remains stagnant as federal government payrolls decreased by 5,000, state government payrolls increased by 6,000, and local government payrolls declined by 2,000.

Many economists say growth is slowing to a 1.5 percent rate in this 4th quarter, largely because of the storm and threat of the fiscal cliff.  This slower growth is not enough growth to lower the unemployment rate in coming months.  The economy has added an average of 158,000 jobs a month the second half of 2012 and an average of 151,000 for 2012.  2011′s monthly average employment increase was 153,000.