A solid November jobs report

While the rest of the world’s economy continues to be sluggish, Japan’s economy is back in recession…again, the U.S. economy continues to out-perform much of the world. You would never know this if you only listen to the GOP presidential candidates describe America as a dystopian hell-scape.

Steve Benen has the November jobs report. Job growth remains strong, unemployment at 5% ;

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning that the U.S. economy added 211,000 jobs in November, which is roughly in line with economists’ projections. The overall unemployment rate remained at 5.0%, which is still the lowest it’s been since February 2008, nearly eight years ago.

Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of today’s report is the revisions: September’s job totals were revised up, from 137,000 to 145,000, while October’s totals were revised up, from 271,000 to 298,000. Combined, that’s an additional 35,000 previously unreported jobs.

Overall, the U.S. has added 2.64 million jobs over the last 12 months — 2.54 million in the private sector alone — which is quite good, and 2.3 million jobs this calendar year, with another month still to come. November was the 62nd consecutive month of positive job growth — the best stretch since 1939 — and the 69th consecutive month in which we’ve seen private-sector job growth, which is the longest on record.

Here’s another chart, this one showing monthly job losses/gains in just the private sector since the start of the Great Recession.

Daily Kos adds:

After reporting that September had generated the weakest job growth in 29 months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated Friday that the economy generated 271,000 seasonally adjusted new jobs in October. That was 268,000 private-sector jobs and 3,000 public-sector jobs. This was far above the consensus of experts surveyed ahead of time. October thus became the 68th straight month that new private jobs and 61st month that new public jobs have been added to the U.S. economy. The official unemployment rate fell 0.1 to 5.0 percent.

The bureau also revised numbers for September from 142,000 to 137,000 and August from 136,000 to 153,000. Last month’s report had included downward revisions to previously estimated numbers for August and July.

The civilian workforce rose 216,000, after having fallen 350,000 in September. The employment-population ratio rose slightly to 59.3 percent, and the labor force participation rate remained unchanged at 62.4 percent.

After a flat September, wages for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 9 cents an hour in October to $25.20. Wages for private-sector production and non-supervisory employees rose by 9 cents an hour to $21.18.

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In addition to the official unemployment rate (which the BLS labels U3), another measure (known as U6) estimates both unemployment and underemployment. It includes people with no job at all, part-time workers who want a full-time job but can’t find one, and many “discouraged” workers. U6 fell in October 0.2 percent to 9.8 percent. The number of people officially unemployed remained unchanged at 7.9 million.

Of course, all the media cares about is whether the FED will raise interest rates so that banks can start charging everyone else higher interest rates. Top Fed official: The economy can handle a rate increase; The Federal Reserve is about to take a big gamble by hiking rates.