Employers Add 94,000 Jobs in November

Washington, DC, December 7, 2007--Employers added 94,000 jobs in November and the national unemployment rate held steady at 4.7 percent, according to the Labor Department.

The department revised up its estimate for October job creation to 170,000 instead of 166,000 it reported a month ago. But it slashed its estimate for September new jobs to 44,000, the weakest monthly gain in more than 3-1/2 years, from a previously reported 96,000.

That was a net decrease of 48,000 in the number of jobs created over the September and October period.

The November new jobs total came in slightly ahead of forecasts by Wall Street economists for 90,000 jobs.

Federal Reserve policy-makers are widely expected to cut interest rates by at least a quarter percentage point when they meet next Tuesday and some analysts speculate the U.S. central bank might trim rates a more aggressive half percentage point in order to ward off what many see as rising risks of recession in 2008.

The jobs report showed a loss of 33,000 jobs in goods-producing industries during November while 127,000 jobs were created in service-providing businesses. Manufacturing industries continued to shed employees, cutting 11,000 jobs last month on top of the 15,000 that were dropped in October.

The average workweek was unchanged at 33.8 hours and overtime hours were steady in both October and November at 4.1 hours.