released by the Labor Department on Friday—just about one-third of the gains in recent months and roughly 45% less than economists expected as new forecasts suggest employment won't return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024. The unemployment rate ticked down to 6.7% in November from 6.9% in October, six months after hitting a record high of 14.7% in April.
There are now 10.9 million unemployed people in the United States, compared to 11.1 million in October, the government said, meaning the economy has still only regained about half of the 22 million jobs lost during the pandemic. The number of permanent job losers remained roughly flat in November at about 3.7 million–more than three times pre-pandemic levels.
In addition to the worse-than-expected job gains, the labor force participation rate edged down to 61.5% as the number of people not actively seeking employment but who still currently want a job increased by nearly half a million in November."Friday's report confirms that the recent labor market recovery is decelerating," says James McDonald, the CEO of Los Angeles-based Hercules Investments.
this year despite major job losses, Moody's Analytics said on Sunday–a sign many of the jobs that have disappeared during the pandemic may never return, Harker warned on Wednesday.Barring any additional legislation from Washington, many Americans face the loss of unemployment benefits, as well as hardships like eviction and foreclosure, once existing government relief programs20.2 million.