The economy added merely 39,000 jobs in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, far worse than expectations of around 140,000. The unemployment rate edged up to 9.8 percent.
The economy had 1.3 million discouraged workers in November who gave up looking for work because they don’t think there are jobs available to them and are thus not included in the headline number. The broader measure of unemployment held steady at 17 percent.
While there have been encouraging signs here and there (incidently, October’s number was upgraded to 172,000 job gains), the labor market has just not been able to build any momentum, or string together several months of strong job growth.
