The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy added 263,000 jobs in November, higher than the anticipated 200,000; and the unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent.
But there are troubling trends in Friday’s employment report:
Despite the rising cost of living, the number of employed Americans dropped for a second straight month, falling by 138,000 to 158,470,000; the number of Americans counted as not in the labor force — meaning they have no job and are not looking for one — increased by 359,000 to 100,227,000, the highest this number has been in a year; and the labor force participation rate declined for a third straight month, to 61.1 percent in November.
