Data shows the headline unemployment rate continued to climb and hit 4.6%, a four-year high, last month

The US labor market grew by more than expected last month, recovering some of the damage inflicted by the federal government shutdown, according to official data.

An estimated 105,000 jobs were lost in October, and 64,000 were added in November, a highly-anticipated report showed on Tuesday.

Jobs growth was higher in November than anticipated by many economists, with a consensus forecast of some 40,000 jobs added. But the headline unemployment rate continued to climb – and hit 4.6%, a four-year high, last month.

The latest jobs numbers, typically released monthly, were delayed due to the government shutdown. They land amid significant uncertainty surrounding the strength of the US economy.

    • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      If anything, my guess is that number is way higher. I’d imagine they’d rather just lie and say that jobs are actually going up. If they can’t even say that I imagine the numbers are beyond fucked.

      • benignintervention@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        I saw a breakdown the other day postulating that the true unemployment rate is masked by the gig economy, because people are more likely to drive Uber than file for unemployment

        • Fit_Series_573@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          If Uber and the other gigs didn’t exist the unemployment rate would probably be at least double what it is now, then again would something else have taken over in its place? Different conversation but kinda does highlight the power of these gig companies. Uber for example would be like these third largest US employer behind Walmart and Amazon if they did employ most the people who do it as the same equivalence of a part or full time job.

          • benignintervention@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            Here, I found the video

            It’s youtube because I couldn’t find it anywhere else. But I think it addresses some of your points. The biggest point it makes is that at the same time that the greater economy lost 3 million jobs (or had that many layoffs), the gig economy gained roughly the same number of people.

            • Fit_Series_573@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Yeah I saw Atriocs reaction video to that. It’s very true in places like Florida, that’s where I was when dealing with both layoffs as well as the extended job search while rent went up at the same time. Ended up leaving a month before the election back north closer to where I grew up and have been better. I’m so glad to have left cause now uber has a planner where you have to schedule your time to work the gig, widely talked about on their subreddit as well as the market got so flooded with drivers this year while less people are riding that none of them make much money anymore

      • lps2@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        The ADP numbers for November have us at losing 30k in November though they had us up in October

    • finley@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      It’s absolutely terrible news… So I’m inclined to believe it’s more likely than not to be accurate.

      But, considering the massive cuts and layoffs in government agencies, I believe there is also a reason to question how accurate that might be based on that. But I don’t think we’re being intentionally lied to to, because if they wanted to lie to us they’d tell us something much better than us.