PinnedUpdated Dec. 16, 2025, 11:58 a.m. ETThe unemployment rate rose in November, a warning sign for the health of a labor market that has been strained by federal layoffs and rising costs.The jobless rate last month rose to 4.6 percent up from 4.4 percent in September, the last month for which officials had a full picture of the labor force before the weekslong government shutdown. It is the highest unemployment rate since September 2021, when the economy was emerging from the pandemic, and an increase from 4.0 percent in January.Employers added 64,000 jobs in November, partly reversing a decline in October. The federal government has lost 168,000 jobs over the past two months, as workers hit by deferred resignations came off the payroll. Wage growth has also slowed notably, to a level not seen since 2021, a measure that comes at a time when an increasing number of Americans are expressing pessimism about the economy.Analysts and policymakers had hoped that today’s report would help clarify the state of the economy after months of conflicting signals. The report also included some belated data on October, collected from a survey of employers after the government shutdown ended.Here’s what to know about the report:Interest rates: The report reinforces the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates last week. The Fed, on guard for signs that the labor market is on the cusp of cracking, has delivered a series of quarter-point interest rate cuts since September, weighing the labor market’s weaknesses against the risk posed by elevated inflation.Federal layoffs: Among the forces affecting the report was the end of the deferred resignation program for federal officials that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency launched this year.Looking for full-time work: The report also shows a large jump in a broader measure of labor market slack: people who are working part time who would rather work full time, as well as those who want a job but haven’t looked in the past month. That share was 8.7 percent in November, up a full percentage point since this time last year.Black workers: The unemployment rate is especially grim for Black workers: up to 8.3 percent, which is more than two percentage points since the beginning of the year. Black workers are often harbingers of what’s to come in the labor market. They have been buffeted by federal policies over the past year, especially federal layoffs.Losses in manufacturing: Manufacturing shed 5,000 jobs in November. So far, the sector has not appeared to benefit from President Trump’s trade war, which he and his administration have argued will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.Off schedule: This report is late and a bit complicated, because of the 43-day government shutdown that ended last month. The November jobs data was supposed to be released on Dec. 5. Today’s report included November data, but also the belatedly gathered October data. Publication of September jobs data was delayed more than six weeks. That report showed a greater-than-expected increase in hiring, but with uneven gains centered on the health care and hospitality industries, along with a rise in unemployment.Dec. 16, 2025, 10:34 a.m. ETThe optimistic take on today’s report is that the bad news mostly came from the survey of households, which is the most likely to have been distorted by shutdown-related disruptions. The survey of employers, which is the source of the payroll estimates, was more encouraging, showing slow but still positive job growth, especially in the private sector.Dec. 16, 2025, 10:12 a.m. ETThe White House on Tuesday sought to recast the dour jobs report as a sign of progress, even though the data showed a rising unemployment rate and other potential signs of weakness looming over the economy.“THE BEST IS YET TO COME!” the White House posted on social media.The administration mounted much of its rebuttal in a series of unsigned social media posts from the Council of Economic Advisers. Officials heralded that the jobs report showed a sharp decrease in the number of federal workers, a gain in private-sector employment and an uptick in younger Americans restarting their search for work, among other positives.But the figures cited by the White House omitted key details about the real strains facing millions of workers, captured in the data released for October and November.Even as it cited robust private-sector job growth, the White House neglected to mention that the report showed that the unemployment rate actually ticked up in November, reaching its highest level since September 2021. The number of Americans out of work for more than six months also rose, though the White House maintained on social media that more Americans “continue to come off the sidelines and re-enter the labor force.”Wages growth also slowed to 3.5 percent, the slowest pace since before the pandemic, the report showed. And, for many Americans, the gains in wages may not have offset the impact of rising prices. Still, the White House on Tuesday sought to spin that data as a positive, arguing that “average private sector weekly earnings are on track to rise to 4.2% during President Trumps’ first full year in office.”Dec. 16, 2025, 10:05 a.m. ETKim BhasinThe Commerce Department released numbers that showed sales at U.S. retailers and restaurants were flat in October after 0.1% growth in September. The figures indicate that consumers have been resilient as they cope with rising prices on groceries and imported goods amid concerns about the labor market. Overall sales were dragged down by a drop in sales at car dealerships, but categories such as clothing and furniture stores saw increased sales.Dec. 16, 2025, 10:00 a.m. ETInvestors appear to largely be looking past this data. Stocks stumbled at the start of the trading day, with the S&P 500 inching lower, while the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite, which is more sensitive to changes in interest rate expectations, rose slightly. It’s a muted reaction and points to the lack of confidence in the outdated numbers reflecting the labor market.Dec. 16, 2025, 9:25 a.m. ET“The labor market is cooling — probably not sharply, but enough to warrant some additional monetary easing,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. “The Fed may prefer to see further evidence of economic weakness before its next cut,” she added, but noted that based on the jobs data, more rate cuts are likely next year than the one that Fed officials forecast at their last meeting.Dec. 16, 2025, 9:23 a.m. ETKeep in mind that these numbers don’t reflect a big downward revision that is expected early next year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in September released a preliminary version of that revision showing that employers added nearly a million fewer jobs in 2024 and early 2025 than initially reported. Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, last week said Fed staffers think the official figures are probably continuing to overstate job growth, perhaps by as much as 60,000 jobs per month. Private economists have come up with similar estimates.Dec. 16, 2025, 9:14 a.m. ETOne slightly more encouraging way of looking at these numbers is to focus on private payrolls, which have accelerated over the past three months after sluggish growth during the summer. “Our high-level take on the labor market is that hiring slowed after Liberation Day, and slowly started to rebound in September,” noted Thomas Simons, an economist with Jefferies, referring to the day in April that President Trump unveiled his sweeping tariffs. “The rebound was likely dampened by the government shutdown, but a return to pre-Liberation Day trends in hiring remains our base case.”Dec. 16, 2025, 9:15 a.m. ETMost of those gains are still coming from the health care sector, which could obscure the weakness across the rest of private industry — especially on the goods-producing side of the economy, which has shrunk by about 32,000 jobs over the past year.Dec. 16, 2025, 9:08 a.m. ETThe initial reaction in the stock market has been fairly muted. Futures on the S&P 500, which give investors the chance to trade before the official market open, are 0.2 percent lower. The yield on 2-year government debt, which is sensitive to changes in interest rate expectations, also fell modestly.Dec. 16, 2025, 9:00 a.m. ETThe puzzling thing about this labor market continues to be the low level of layoffs. Initial claims for unemployment insurance have not escalated notably, and the layoff rate as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is still around where it was during the very strong prepandemic labor market. This increase in unemployment is largely coming from more people looking for jobs, and not finding them.Unemployment rate Note: Data is seasonally adjusted. The Bureau of Labor Statistics did not release an unemployment figure for October 2025. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jacqueline Gu/The New York TimesDec. 16, 2025, 8:57 a.m. ETThe bottom line of this report is that the job market appears to have weakened significantly since earlier this year. We first saw that with slowing job growth over the summer. Now it’s showing up in the form of higher unemployment. There are caveats, as there always are. But there’s no way to read this report as anything other than a sign of softness if not outright weakness.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:59 a.m. ETThe question for the past several months has been whether the labor market would take a sharp turn for the worse, of the sort usually associated with a recession. This report isn’t enough to conclude we’ve hit that kind of turning point. But it certainly raises some red flags.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:54 a.m. ETIn another troubling indicator, there was a large jump in a broader measure of labor market slack, which includes people who are working part time who would rather work full time, as well as those who want a job but haven’t looked in the past month. That share was 8.7 percent in November, up a full percentage point since this time last year.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:54 a.m. ETToday’s data may help explain why majorities of voters in recent polls have given President Trump poor marks on the economy. Unemployment is rising and wage growth is slowing, the data show, adding to the financial pressures on American families when prices are elevated.Time and again, Trump has blamed these poor economic indicators and other negative developments on his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr., claiming they are after-effects of his leadership. But, nearly one year into Trump’s second term, voters seem to be telling pollsters that they believe that he may shoulder at least some of the blame, as his approval on economic issues continues to dip.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:48 a.m. ETPlenty of people are still working or looking for work. For people in their prime working years, between age 26 and 54, the labor force participation rate edged up to 83.8 percent, nearing a recent high of 83.9 reached last year. (The highest rate was 84.6 percent in 1999.)Dec. 16, 2025, 8:47 a.m. ETFederal government employment fell by 162,000 in October. That largely reflects the deferred resignation program that the Trump administration offered early this year. Employees who took that offer generally stayed on payrolls through September.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:47 a.m. ETSimilarly, the unemployment rate for young people ages 20-24 is not encouraging. While it ticked down to 8.3 percent in November, from 9.2 percent in September, it is higher than it has been since 2021.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:46 a.m. ETMost officials at the central bank forecasted the unemployment rate would peak at 4.5 percent this year before gradually easing in 2026, according to projections released alongside last week’s interest rate decision. So the rise in the unemployment rate in November to 4.6 percent is noteworthy. That said, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, warned last week that technical distortions in the data suggested it should be viewed with a “skeptical eye,” meaning December’s data to be released in January will likely have more bearing on what the central bank does next with interest rates. The recent projections showed that most officials saw just one quarter-point reduction next year, although there was a wide range of views across the Fed.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:42 a.m. ETThe unemployment rate is especially grim for Black workers, up to 8.3 percent. That’s more than two percentage points higher since the beginning of the year. As I wrote following the September data, Black workers are often seen as harbingers of what’s to come in the labor market, and have been buffeted by federal policies over the past year, especially those federal layoffs.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:42 a.m. ETThe number of Americans who have been out of work for more than six months, the typical definition of long-term unemployment, rose to 1.9 million in November, up from 1.7 million a year earlier.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:42 a.m. ETOne bright spot: The average work week ticked up to 34.3 hours, a sign that employers are not significantly cutting employees’ hours.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:42 a.m. ETThe unemployment rate, at 4.6 percent, is now at its highest level since September 2021, as the economy was emerging from the pandemic. It’s up from 4 percent in January.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:41 a.m. ETWage growth slowed notably, to 3.5 percent since this time last year. That is the slowest pace since before the pandemic.Dec. 16, 2025, 8:38 a.m. ETDigging into those numbers a little more, manufacturing lost 5,000 jobs in November. So far, the sector has not appeared to benefit from Trump’s trade war, which he and his administration have argued will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.