National unemployment falls to 7% in Nov. as federal employees return to work

The national unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in November, down from 7.3 percent a month earlier, according to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS. The number of unemployed Americans fell by 365,000, while both the number of employed and the labor force grew over the month. The number...

The national unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in November, down from 7.3 percent a month earlier, according to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS. The number of unemployed Americans fell by 365,000, while both the number of employed and the labor force grew over the month.

The number of payroll jobs increased by 203,000. Americans mainly found jobs in transportation and warehousing, health care and manufacturing over the month.

This encouraging set of numbers is partly due to the end of the partial government shutdown. According to the BLS, a portion of the unemployment drop and employment rise was due to federal workers returning to work: “This largely reflects the return to work of federal employees who were furloughed in October due to the partial government shutdown.”

But though this month’s report is positive, the country is still far behind where it should be on the road to recovery.

The unemployment rate has fallen, but there are still millions of Americans who lack employment opportunities. More than 10.9 million Americans are still unemployed, with 4.1 million being unemployed long term, meaning they have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more.

Overall, there are 1.1 million fewer employed Americans today than there were in 2007 before the Great Recession. Of those employed, there are 3.6 million fewer full-time workers.

This month’s creation of 203,000 payroll jobs is an improvement, but only a first step.  According to James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute:

If the labor force participation rate were where it was a year ago, the jobless rate would be 7.9%, not 7%…Overall, according to the Hamilton Project Jobs Gap calculator, it will take another five years to return to 2007 employment levels even at the improved job creation pace of the past four months.