A Bleak Jobs Report

Job growth slows, unemployment rate rises

Today’s jobs report covers a lot of ground, but the upshot is clear: 2025 is shaping up to be the worst year for job growth in more than 15 years (excluding 2020, obviously), and unemployment is steadily trending higher.

The unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in November, up from 4.4% in September (we don’t get an Oct. rate), but rounding makes that increase look bigger than it actually is (4.44% in Sept. to 4.56% in Nov.).

Still, the unemployment rate is at its highest level in more than four years.

We’ve lost 41,000 jobs since September. That has a lot to do with a massive decline in government employment, particularly in October, which is when the DOGE incentivized retirements technically took effect.

Private sector job growth has been steadier, though unspectacular. Of course, that’s largely due to the noncyclical healthcare industry. A lot of other private sector segments are struggling. Manufacturing, for instance, has lost 63,000 through the first 11 months of 2025.

There are a few reason for, well, not optimism, but maybe less severe pessimism.

The labor force grew at a healthy pace over the past few months, and the labor force participation rate rose to the highest level since April.

Construction hiring also rebounded, and you can read what Anirban had to say about that over at ABC.

We don’t entirely know how the shutdown and federal worker retirements affected this data. It would be great if, come next month’s jobs report, we learn that those factors made the labor market temporarily appear worse than it actually is.

For the time being, however, the labor market remains a major cause for concern.

What’s Next

This week is loaded with important data releases (beyond just this one), and Anirban will cover all of them in Week in Review, our every Friday post that gives you everything you need to know about the economy in a breezy, five-minute read. That’s just for paying subscribers. If that’s not you and you want it to be, just click the button below: