Bureau of Labor Statistics: Healthcare Added 45K Jobs in November
On Friday, Dec. 2, the U.S. Labor Department, through its Bureau of Labor Statistics, announced what experts agreed was a surprisingly good jobs report for November—and healthcare hiring was a particularly bright spot, with 45,000 new workers added to healthcare payrolls nationwide.
As Jeff Cox of CNBC wrote on Friday morning, “Job growth was much better than expected in November despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to slow the labor market and tackle inflation. Nonfarm payrolls increased 263,000 for the month while the unemployment rate was 3.7%, the Labor Department reported Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for an increase of 200,000 on the payrolls number and 3.7% for the jobless rate. The monthly gain was a slight decrease from October’s upwardly revised 284,000. A broader measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons edged lower to 6.7 percent.”
And Reuters’ Lucia Mutikani wrote on Friday morning that “The gains in employment last month were led by the leisure and hospitality sector, which added 88,000 jobs, most of them at restaurants and bars. Leisure and hospitality employment remains down 980,000 from its pre-pandemic level. There were 45,000 jobs added in healthcare, while government payrolls increased 42,000. Construction employment increased by 20,000 jobs despite the housing market turmoil, while manufacturing added 14,000 jobs. But retail trade employment fell by 30,000 jobs, with most of the losses in general merchandise stores. Transportation and warehousing payrolls decreased by 15,000 jobs.”
U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh commented that “Some of November’s strongest growth came in the sectors that were hardest hit by the pandemic. Leisure and Hospitality added 88,000 jobs, including 62,000 new jobs at restaurants, bars and similar establishments. The healthcare industry added 45,000 jobs, and the social assistance sector that includes childcare and other services critical to working families is now for the first time fully recovered from its pandemic job losses. We are also seeing continued job growth in the manufacturing and construction sectors that have been bolstered by investments from the CHIPS and Science Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” he added. “We’ve added more than 750,000 manufacturing jobs since the Administration began and supply chains are strong as the holiday season begins.”
Reuters’ Mutikani added in her report that, “With the labor market still tight, average hourly earnings increased 0.6 percent after advancing 0.5 percent in October. That raised the annual increase in wages to 5.1 percent from 4.9 percent in October. Wage growth peaked at 5.6 percent in March.
Details can be found on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ website, here.
