US unemployment ticked up last month in the latest sign of job market weakness, but the mixed official report still leaves room for debate among central bankers.
The unemployment rate rose to a four-year high of 4.6% in November, up from 4.4% in September, according to Labour Department figures on Tuesday. Employers added 64,000 jobs in November, more than many economists predicted.
The gains followed a drop of 105,000 jobs in October, driven by a loss of 162,000 federal government roles stemming from the Trump administration’s push to cut government jobs earlier this year.
The delayed report was the first snapshot of the labour market since the US government shutdown.
The Labor Department also said there were fewer jobs added in September and August than it had initially estimated.
But while the report showed there was growing weakness in the labour market, economists cautioned it would be unlikely to resolve internal disagreements at the Federal Reserve as policymakers consider the path forward for interest rates.
The US central bank is weighing how to balance competing priorities: a weakening job market on the one hand, and rising prices on the other.
The Fed cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point last week, its third cut this year, in a bid to boost the slowing labour market.
Projections released last week showed Fed officials largely expect one rate cut in 2026. But more data showing a weakening labour market could shift their thinking, potentially boosting the case for additional cuts next year.
That said, analysts noted Tuesday’s delayed report was unusually muddied.
“For a data-dependent Fed, this morning’s data will only increase the internal debate,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management.
“It remains to be seen how attentive they are to the labour market versus the fact that inflation has remained stubbornly above their 2% target.”
Fed chair Jerome Powell is “likely to view today’s jobs data with a fair degree of scepticism”, said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. Data distortions and tighter immigration policies mean the overall payroll figures “should not be taken at face value”, she added.
Still, Ms Shah said the unexpectedly sharp rise in the unemployment rate last month will “trigger some creeping concern within the Fed”.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said on Tuesday that the figures followed an expected trend.
Hassett, a long-time conservative economist and Trump loyalist, is seen as a front-runner to succeed Powell as Fed chair.
“I think that from the private sector point of view it’s just about what we’ve been getting all year. It’s solid upward trajectory,” he told CNBC.
Delayed and disrupted data
The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report usually comes out on the first Friday of each month. But because of the 43-day federal government shutdown, which lasted through mid-November, the Labor Department postponed the November jobs report by more than a week.
The shutdown left statistical agencies understaffed, forcing data collection to grind to a halt.
There was another wrinkle in Tuesday’s unusual release: the Labor Department unveiled partial labour market data from October alongside the full November report.
Many of the workers cut by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the spring did not formally fall off the payrolls until October, which economists said complicated the overall numbers for that month.
In November, job gains were uneven across sectors.
Health care added 46,000 jobs, according to the report, 11,000 of which were in nursing and residential care facilities. Employment in construction, which the Labor Department says had held fairly steady over the previous 12 months, rose by 28,000 jobs.
On the other hand, the transportation and warehousing sector saw 18,000 job losses in November. Employment in manufacturing fell by 5,000 jobs.
A jump in long-term unemployment
Tuesday’s report also showed an uptick in the number of people who have been unemployed long-term, for more than six months.
In November, that number stood at 1.9 million, up from 1.8 million in September and 1.7 million a year before.
Software engineer Ivan Maurizi was out of work for nearly a year after getting laid off from his job in the video game sector in December last year.
The 37-year-old, based in Virginia, sent out more than 500 applications with little response, despite widening his search well beyond video game firms. He eventually got two offers in September, starting work last month at a bank.
He says he did not get traction until he started tapping his friends in the industry to flag up his applications to openings. But even with a new job, he hardly feels secure: the contact who had helped him land the position lost her own position before he reported to work.
Meanwhile, conversation around artificial intelligence continues to rumble through his industry.
“If I lost this [job] today, well I would know what to expect but I wouldn’t know when the next job would land,” he says. “It could take a year.”
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