Despite concerns that Superstorm Sandy, which struck right at the end of October, would hold down employment gains for November, the new jobless figures for that month, released this morning, were actually fairly good. The economy added 146,000 jobs in November, which is pretty much par for the course at this point, despite an economists' consensus that the number would be about 85,000. The headline unemployment figure edged down from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent.
Unsurprisingly, the economic sector showing the biggest gains was retail, where 53,000 new jobs were added. That might be a result of the unusually early Thanksgiving, which meant that the last full week of November was part of the holiday shopping season.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that Sandy had little effect on the overall jobs numbers. But we'll know more about that on December 21st, when the BLS releases state-by-state employment figures for November. It could be that the employment figures here in New Jersey were much worse than for the overall nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment