The recovery in the US jobs market collapsed in November as cases of Covid-19 hit new records, government figures revealed on Friday.
The US added just 245,000 new jobs in November, less than the 638,000 jobs added in October, the 672,000 jobs added in September and the 1.4m jobs added in August. The unemployment rate fell to 6.7%.
Jobs growth has now slowed month on month since June and the latest report highlighted another worrying trend – the growth in long-term unemployment. In November, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) increased by 385,000 to 3.9 million, accounting for 36.9% of the total unemployed.
The unemployment rate has fallen sharply from a record high of 14.7% in April but is still 3.2 percentage points higher than it was in February, before the coronavirus struck the US.
The downturn also continues to disproportionately affect people of color. The unemployment rate for black Americans was 10.5% in November, for Latinos it was 8.4% and for whites 5.9%.
November’s figures were dragged down by the loss of temporary hiring for the government’s latest census, which accounted for the loss of 96,000 jobs. But other sectors also lost jobs, notably retail which shed 35,000 jobs.
