The U.S. economy added far fewer jobs in November than experts had predicted, as the country continues its slow recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic under the Biden administration.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nonfarm payrolls increased by just 210,000 for the month, well below the Dow Jones estimate of 573,000. The figure also came in significantly below October's job gains, which totaled 531,000.
Experts had believed that steady job growth would continue into the holiday season, but that has evidently not been the case. The report specifically noted that retail trade — one of the sectors hit hardest by the pandemic — actually declined over the month.
The sectors with the highest gains in November were professional and business services, transportation and warehousing, construction, and manufacturing.
The news also indicated that hiring began to slow even before the detection of the new Omicron coronavirus variant, CNBC reported. The variant, which caused mass global hysteria, wasn't detected until Thanksgiving weekend, or toward the end of the month.
Total nonfarm employment continues to lag behind its pre-pandemic levels, the report showed. While 18.5 million jobs have been added since April 2020, the economy remains down 3.9 million jobs, or 2.6%, from its previous high point in February 2020, before the pandemic began.
Though even as hiring slowed, the report showed that unemployment dropped to a post-pandemic low of 4.2% in November, narrowly besting predictions of 4.5%. This latter news came from the household data survey, one of two surveys used to compile data. The other survey records hiring among employers.
"As is the case from time to time, the two surveys painted somewhat different pictures of the economy," the New York Times explained, noting that the household survey showed the "number of employed Americans jumped by more than 1.1 million."
"And the overall participation rate, which measures the proportion of Americans who either have jobs or are looking for one, rose by 0.2 percentage point to 61.8 percent," the Times added.
Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed, told CNBC, "This report is a tale of two surveys. The household survey shows accelerating employment gains, workers returning to the labor force, and low levels of involuntary part-time work. The payroll survey shows a significant deceleration in job growth, particularly in COVID-affected sectors.”
The startling differences between the two surveys, if anything, show a hefty amount of volatility surrounding the economy. And many now fear that the emergence of the Omicron variant will only add to that volatility.
"We saw in a very real way a slowdown in hiring as a result of the Delta variant," Nela Richardson, chief economist for the payroll processing company ADP, told NPR. "There were fewer people going to restaurants. Fewer people traveling. And that had an impact on hiring. It likely had an impact on fewer people deciding to come back into the labor market."
She and others worry that Omicron may result in retelling that the same story.
Democrats and the Biden administration have attributed the blunted economic recovery, in part, to a lack of child care services for working parents. They have used the problem to push support for President Joe Biden's American Families Plan, a massive legislative proposal that would cost taxpayers $1.8 trillion.
However, new analysis released by economic experts including Harvard professor Jason Furman, whom Politico described as a "prominent White House ally" and "Biden-friendly economist," severely undercuts the Democratic narrative.
After April's shockingly disappointing job's report showed the U.S. economy stalled last month — adding only about one-quarter of the 1 million jobs experts predicted — Democrats have called for Congress to act on Biden's plan, and the White House has said lack of child care access is preventing parents from rejoining the workforce.
Politico reported:
Democratic officials have used the jobs report to call on Congress to urgently approve hundreds of billions of dollars in child care aid that Biden has proposed under the American Families Plan, which also includes two free years of universal pre-K. "If we don't solve our child care crisis, there isn't going to be an economic recovery," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said at a Thursday press conference.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters earlier this month that passing the Families Plan "would have a huge benefit in addressing some of the impacts of child care, on educational needs … that is preventing women from rejoining the workforce."
The economic analysis co-authored Furman, who served as chairman of former President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, found that child care challenges are not contributing to the stalled economic recovery.
"School closures and lack of child care are not holding back the recovery," Furman said, Politico reported. "And conversely, we shouldn't expect a short-term economic bump from reopening schools and making child care more available."
In fact, the analysis discovered the employment rate for parents with young children decreased at a lower rate than the unemployment rate for people without young children, yet another indicator that child care challenges are not contributing to the stalled jobs recovery.
Instead, the analysis concluded that enhanced unemployment benefits is partly behind the disappointing economic numbers from April.
While school closures and ongoing childcare challenges have substantially burdened parents and children alike, they do not appear to be a meaningful driver of the slow employment recovery. This means that the factors responsible for the slow employment recovery and depressed labor supply are issues that are not exclusively related to the struggles of working parents, such as the continued concern about the threat of getting COVID-19 at work or expanded unemployment insurance benefits and eligibility.
Furman had said previously child care challenges and closed schools were contributing to poor economic recovery numbers.
Jared Bernstein, a member of Biden's Council of Economic Advisers, essentially dismissed the analysis, saying it "doesn't obviate our concerns about the child care barrier either in the near-term or the long-term."
"Many factors remain in play: fear of the virus, barriers to child care, school closures, concerns about the vaccination rates for working-age people," Bernstein told Politico. "All of these factors are in the mix, and I don't think you can find one piece of research that says, 'Aha, here is the main factor or the sole factor.' These factors are all interacting with each other as we continue making a gradual return back to pre-crisis conditions."
A CNBC analyst appeared to be so shocked by how grim April's jobs report was that he needed to double-check the numbers to see if he read it correctly, video shows.
The Department of Labor released its official April payroll report on Friday, showing the U.S. economy added just 266,000 new jobs during the month, falling well short of forecasts that predicted the economy would add closer to one million jobs. Additionally, the unemployment rate shot up to 6.1%.
The report surprised many analysts on Wall Street who expected the economy would continue adding jobs at a steady rate as the coronavirus pandemic wanes — 536,000 new jobs were added in February and 770,000 were added in March.
Included among those caught off-guard by the anemic numbers was CNBC senior economic reporter Steve Liesman, who furiously checked his notes for different information while announcing the figure during "Squawk Box" on Friday.
The April jobs report was so bad @CNBC had to double check the number to make sure they read it correctly. https://t.co/I7AHf1jUP2
— Mike Berg (@MikeKBerg) 1620393140.0
"It just came across, give me a second here," Liesman said as he apparently fumbled through notes.
"Ahh, sorry about that, it came across very quickly here," he added in frustration before finding the report.
"It looks 266,000," he then said defeatedly. "It looks like it was a big disappointment at 266, but maybe I have that wrong."
"Let me double-check the [Bureau of Labor Statistics] website here," he continued in disbelief. Finally he confirmed, "Yes, 266 is correct ... so we have some issues here."
TheBlaze reported on Friday that "one major roadblock" highlighted by the jobs report is the inability of companies to fill open positions, largely due to the "relative attractiveness of expanded federal unemployment benefits, and the inability of some parents to resume full time work because schools in many parts of the country have not fully reopened for full-time in-person learning."
In its coverage of the news, Bloomberg noted that even with the high unemployment numbers and low job growth, the number of available jobs in the country is approaching record levels.
Shortly after the report was released, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called for an end to the $300 a week federal unemployment benefit, which was extended in the Biden administration's recent coronavirus relief package.
"The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market," said the chamber's chief policy officer, Neal Bradley, in a statement. "We need a comprehensive approach to dealing with our workforce issues and the very real threat unfilled positions poses to our economic recovery from the pandemic."
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