November jobs growth falls short of expectations


U.S. employers added 155,000 non-farm jobs in November, the Labor Department reported Friday, continuing months of solid hiring but falling short of expectations. Economists polled by MarketWatch on average had forecast a gain of 190,000 jobs.
Unemployment remained at 3.7 percent for the third straight month, a 49-year low. Hourly wages rose by 0.2 percent to $27.35 an hour, leaving the 12-month rate of hourly wage gains unchanged at a nine-year high of 3.1 percent.
The solid numbers came despite warning signs of slowing growth and concerns over trade tensions. Hiring got a boost from higher-than-usual holiday hiring as retailers prepare for what they expect to be a strong holiday season.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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