Unemployment dropped by 0.3 percentage points, to 4.6 percent, last month — the lowest rate since 2007 — according to the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As NPR's Marilyn Geewax notes, 4.6 percent unemployment is what most economists consider "full employment." But the report wasn't all good news: wages dropped slightly, instead of showing a hoped-for increase.
The jobs report says the U.S. added 178,000 new jobs in November, which is about what economists had expected. Predictions called for some 180,000 new jobs last month, NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports — almost exactly the average monthly growth for the year so far.
But the drop in unemployment was a surprise — economists thought it would hold steady at 4.9 percent.
The BLS notes that the unemployment rate had shown little movement from August 2015 through October 2016.
The drop in unemployment was driven by adult men, while the rates for women and teenagers didn't show much or any change.
The labor force participation rate, the number of people with part-time jobs who would prefer full-time jobs, and the number of discouraged workers all showed little change.
Average hourly earnings dropped by 3 cents, after seeing an 11-cent rise in October. Economists had been watching to see if the relatively low unemployment rate would be pushing employers to raise wages, Yuki Noguchi reports.
"In previous years, wage gains have been stagnant," Yuki told our Newscast unit. "But in October, wages increased at their fastest pace since the end of the recession — 2.8 percent."
That trend did not continue in November. The BLS notes that over the course of the year, counting the small drop in November, wages have increased by 2.5 percent.
Professional and business services, health care and construction all added new jobs, while other major industries neither added or lost jobs.
The report also revised the jobs numbers for the last two months — the numbers for September went up to 208,000, and for October went down to 142,000. In total the revisions meant there were 2,000 fewer jobs added this fall than had previously been reported.
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