(12-06-19)
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 266,000 in November, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 3.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in health care and in professional and technical services. Employment rose in manufacturing, reflecting the return of workers from a strike. This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note. Household Survey Data – Both the unemployment rate, at 3.5 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 5.8 million, changed little in November. Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.2 percent), adult women (3.2 percent), teenagers (12.0 percent), Whites (3.2 percent), Blacks (5.5 percent), Asians (2.6 percent), and Hispanics (4.2 percent) showed little or no change in November. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 1.2 million, was essentially unchanged in November and accounted for 20.8 percent of the unemployed. The labor force participation rate was little changed at 63.2 percent in November. The employment-population ratio was 61.0 percent for the third consecutive month. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons, at 4.3 million, changed little in November. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. In November, 1.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, down by 432,000 from a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Among the marginally attached, there were 325,000 discouraged workers in November, down by 128,000 from a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 921,000 persons marginally attached to the labor force in November had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.