Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 200,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in November. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals were even better than that. NBC News reported:
Job creation in November rebounded from a near-standstill the prior month as the effects of a significant labor strike and violent storms in the Southeast receded, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 227,000 for the month, compared to an upwardly revised 36,000 in October. … September’s payroll count also was revised upward, to 255,000, up 32,000 from the prior estimate.
About a month ago at this time, a jobs report reflected dreadful data, but the numbers painted a misleading picture: The effects of two hurricanes and a Boeing strike made the job market look far worse than it actually was. (Republicans who must’ve known better nevertheless used the news to make wildly deceptive pre-election claims.)
The new data is vastly more encouraging. The latest news wasn’t all good — the unemployment rate inched up to a still-historically-low 4.2%, as was expected, and the labor force declined — but broadly speaking, there’s a fair amount to like in the new data.
As for the political picture, let’s also circle back to previous coverage to put the data in perspective. Over the course of the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency — when the Republican said the U.S. economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.38 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the latest tally, the U.S. economy has created nearly 16.8 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years. (If we include the fourth year of the Republican’s term, the data looks even worse for him.)
For some additional context, consider job growth by year over the past decade, updated to reflect the latest data revisions:
2013: 2.3 million
2014: 3 million
2015: 2.7 million
2016: 2.3 million
2017: 2.1 million
2018: 2.3 million
2019: 1.98 million
2020: -9.3 million
2021: 7.2 million
2022: 4.5 million
2023: 3 million
Eleven months into 2024: 1.98 million
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
