Nonfarm payroll employment grew by 215,000 in November, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Over the month, job growth was widespread, with large gains in construction and food services.
Barry Ritholtz took the "under" and was just barely right.
Earlier this week, I said that if it didn't hit 200,000 we'd all be scratching our heads over the weekend. Now, if only we could string three or four of these in a row.
Off to class. More later.
UPDATE: Here's what the BLS had to say about Hurricane Katrina:
Beginning in October, questions were added to the household survey to identify persons who evacuated from their homes, even temporarily, due to Hurricane Katrina. Data collected through these questions do not represent all evacuees; persons living outside the scope of the survey—such as those living in hotels or shelters—are not included. The questions were asked of persons in the household survey sample throughout the country, since some evacuees relocated far from the storm-affected areas. The questions also determined whether evacuees had returned to their homes by the time of the survey. This additional information enabled analysis of the employment status of this subgroup of evacuees. (The total number of evacuees estimated from the household survey may change from month to month as people move in and out of the scope of the survey.)
Information gathered in November showed that about 900,000 persons age 16 and over had evacuated from where they were living in August due to Hurricane Katrina. These evacuees either had returned to their homes or were living in other residential units covered in the survey in November. Half of the evacuees had returned to their August 2005 residences. Of all evacuees identified, 55.2 percent were in the labor force in November. The employment-population ratio for these evacuees was 43.9 percent. The unemployment rate for persons identified as evacuees was 20.5 percent; it was much higher for those who had not returned home (27.8 percent) than for those who had returned (12.5 percent).
PGL notes that the household survey showed a drop in employment and that the employment/population ratio (e/p) fell from 62.9 to 62.8.
Drilling down a little further into the household data we see that e/p increased slightly for white women and white teens while e/p for African-Americans fell from 58.5 to 57.3.
So then we read the BLS's statement on page one of the report:
In November, the state population controls used for the household survey were adjusted to account for displacements due to Hurricane Katrina. These adjustments had a minimal impact on the national household survey estimates.
Perhaps minimal on the total number, but if the displaced residents are disproportionately African-American, it may affect those numbers. To be honest, I'm not sure if their population controls take race into account or how reliable those adjustments might be for this sample. I think it might be too early to say just how much of it is a statistical quirk and how much is truly the impact of Katrina on African-American unemployment. But it does suggest a sizeable impact on African-American unemployment that stands out in today's data.
African-American teenage unemployment jumped from 32.9% to 38.8% this month. It is now at the highest level since August 1995. For those who want the longer view, here is the chart I generated from the BLS website (which has one of the best web facilities for getting the data just the way you want it).
Most other aspects of the labor data appear to be holding their own or slowly improving. This picture is not, and not just because of the hurricanes either. That is a little disconcerting.
UPDATE 2: Andrew Samwick also weighs in.
Stick with the trend!
What was the over/under per the Household Survey - which decline by 52,000.