Fragile signs of economic recovery

Employers added 120,000 jobs in November, which helped bring the unemployment rate to its lowest level in two years.

What happened

The U.S. unemployment rate dipped to its lowest level in more than two years last month, according to a Labor Department report that showed both promise and peril for President Obama’s re-election bid. Employers added 120,000 new jobs in November, helping to reduce the unemployment rate by 0.4 percentage points, to 8.6 percent. Job gains for previous months were also revised up, to 210,000 from 158,000 in September, and to 100,000 from 80,000 in October. The president welcomed the figures as a sign that the economic recovery from the Great Recession was finally getting traction, saying that private sector employment had now been growing for “nearly 21 months in a row.”

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