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Jobless Rate Slips to 5.9% but Pace of Hiring Eases
The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to an eight-month low in November even as employers slowed the pace of hiring. The unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a percentage point to 5.9%, the lowest level since March. Nonfarm business payrolls grew by a net 57,000 last month, raising the total of job gains since July to 328,000, the Labor Department said Friday. The numbers surprised Wall Street. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC had called for payrolls to grow by 150,000 and the unemployment rate to remain steady at 6%. But the report validated the Federal Reserveâs view that the labor-market recovery will be gradual despite the sizzling economic growth the U.S. has seen in recent months. The average work week expanded to a 14-month high, a sign employers are running out of ways to meet demand with reduced work forces. Over the last three years, employers have cut more than three million private- sector jobs. To replace those jobs within a year and keep up with population growth, employers would need to create at least 400,000 jobs a month, said Ed McKelvey, an economist with Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York. That far exceeds the average of the late-1990s economic boom.Posted by: Jarhead 2003-12-05 |
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