The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the employment rate in the U.S. has remained constant through November – the longest time that the rate has been this love in 17 years.
The unemployment rate further measures the portion of those Americans who did not have a job and are actively looking for one during the month the statistics are collected.
The “real” unemployment rate, which is also known as the U-6 measure, is 8.0% in November, which has increased slightly from 7.9% in October.
Nearly 148,000 Americans have joined the labor force in November, while other 35,000 Americans left their jobs and subsequently the labor force – jobs grew.
In October, there were a total of 160,381,000 Americans in the civilian labor force, which had increased to 160,529,000 in November.
The participation rate of the labor force, which is portion of total Americans that have a job or are actively looking for one in the past month, remained constant at 62.7%.
There was a slight increase in part-time labor, which is to be expected around the holiday season and Christmas, as retailers expand their labor force to accommodate shoppers.
There were around 4,753,000 Americans who were working part-time in October, who would rather have a full-time job but they were cited to have their economic reasons for not having any such employment. This number has increased by 48,000 over the month. Since the beginning of the year, however, the number of Americans who were working part-time for their economic reasons has declined by staggering 1,039,000 individuals.
According to the BLS, involuntary part-time workers are “persons who indicated that they would like to work full time but were working part-time (1 to 34 hours) because of an economic reason, such as their hours were cut back or they were unable to find full-time jobs.”
“We have never seen this kind of intensity around job creation in the 44-year history of the National Federation of Independent Business Jobs Report,” said the President of NFIB and CEO Juanita Duggan. “This is a powerful signal that small business is roaring back to life and ready to lead another period of economic expansion.”
“Small business owners believe that next year will bring opportunities to grow,” said the chief economist for NFIB, Bill Dunkelberg. “They feel very good about the new management team in Washington, they expect Congress to reduce their taxes, and their customers are spending more money. All of that leads to higher demand for workers.”
“Overall, labor demand is historically very strong, with historically high job openings and record high plans to create new jobs,” said Dunkelberg.