Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press 

under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that 

the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Statement of 

William J. Wiatrowski 

Acting Commissioner 

Bureau of Labor Statistics 

Friday, December 8, 2017

Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 228,000 in 

November, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1 

percent. Employment continued to trend up in professional and 

business services, manufacturing, and health care. Employment 

growth has averaged 174,000 per month thus far this year, 

compared with an average monthly gain of 187,000 in 2016. 

Incorporating revisions for September and October, which 

increased nonfarm payroll employment by 3,000 on net, monthly 

job gains have averaged 170,000 over the past 3 months. 

In November, employment in professional and business 

services continued to trend up (+46,000). This is in line with 

the average monthly gain for the industry over the past 2 years. 

Manufacturing added 31,000 jobs in November. Job gains 

occurred in machinery (+8,000), fabricated metal products 

(+7,000), computer and electronic products (+4,000), and 
2

plastics and rubber products (+4,000). Since a recent low in 

November 2016, manufacturing employment has expanded by 189,000. 

Health care employment rose by 30,000 in November. Most of 

the gain occurred in ambulatory health care services (+25,000), 

which includes offices of physicians and outpatient care 

centers. Monthly job gains in health care have averaged 24,000 

so far in 2017, compared with 32,000 in 2016. 

Within construction, specialty trade contractors added 

23,000 jobs over the month and 132,000 over the year. These 

gains were split about equally between residential and 

nonresidential contractors. 

Employment in other major industries--mining, wholesale 

trade, retail trade, transportation and warehousing, 

information, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and 

government--showed little change over the month. 

Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm 

payrolls increased by 5 cents to $26.55 in November. Over the 

past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.5

percent. From October 2016 to October 2017, the Consumer Price 

Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased by 2.0 percent 

(on a seasonally adjusted basis). 

The major labor market indicators from the survey of 

households showed little or no change in November. The 

unemployment rate, at 4.1 percent, was unchanged over the month, 
3

and the number of unemployed people, at 6.6 million, was about 

unchanged. 

Among the unemployed in November, 1.6 million had been 

searching for work for 27 weeks or longer. These long-term 

unemployed accounted for 23.8 percent of the total unemployed. 

The labor force participation rate remained at 62.7 percent 

in November and has shown no clear trend over the past year. 

The employment-population ratio was little changed at 60.1 

percent in November. This measure has shown little movement, on 

net, since early this year.

In November, the number of people working part time for 

economic reasons, also referred to as involuntary part-time 

workers, remained at 4.8 million. Over the past 12 months, the 

number of involuntary part-time workers was down by 858,000. 

Among those neither working nor looking for work in 

November, 1.5 million people were marginally attached to the 

labor force, a decrease of 451,000 from a year earlier. 

Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached who 

believe that no jobs are available for them, numbered 469,000 in 

November, down by 122,000 from a year earlier. (People who are 

marginally attached to the labor force had not looked for work 

in the 4 weeks prior to the survey but wanted a job, were 

available for work, and had looked for a job within the last 12 

months.) 
4

In summary, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 228,000 

in November, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1 

percent.