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

Kathleen P. Utgoff

Commissioner

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Friday, December 5, 2003

Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 57,000 in 

November, and the unemployment rate, at 5.9 percent, was 

essentially unchanged over the month. Since July, payroll 

employment has increased by 328,000.

Over the month, the number of jobs in health care and 

social assistance continued to increase, rising by 25,000 

in November. The accommodations industry added 13,000 

jobs, following losses that totaled 27,000 in the prior 3 

months.

Although employment in professional and business 

services was little changed in November, employment in this 

sector has risen by 181,000 so far this year. About threequarters of this gain was in temporary help services.
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Construction employment continued to trend up in

November; the industry has added 156,000 jobs since 

February.

Retail trade employment fell by 28,000 in November, 

largely due to the net impact of strike-related activities 

in food and beverage stores. In the payroll survey, 

workers on strike for the entire reference period are not 

counted as employed because they are not being paid by 

their employers. Although a large number of workers were 

off payrolls in food stores due to labor-management 

disputes, the hiring of replacement workers offset some of 

the employment decline. 

The number of jobs in credit intermediation, which 

includes mortgage banking, declined for the second 

consecutive month. Since September, the industry has lost 

16,000 jobs, but that follows employment gains of about a 

quarter million over the prior 3 years. Most of this job 

growth reflected increased mortgage refinancing activity,

which has fallen sharply in recent months.

The pace of job losses in manufacturing has eased in 

recent months. Over the past 3 months, employment edged 

down by an average of 17,000 per month, compared with an 

average monthly drop of 53,000 for the 12 months ending in 

August. Nearly all of this relative improvement has 
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occurred in durable goods manufacturing, where employment 

was unchanged in November. The manufacturing workweek 

increased by 0.2 hour over the month and has risen by 0.7 

hour since July. Factory overtime also has risen in recent 

months.

Average hourly earnings of production or 

nonsupervisory workers were essentially unchanged in 

November at $15.46. Over the year, average hourly earnings 

increased by 2.1 percent. Since March 2001, the over-theyear change in average hourly earnings has dropped by 2 

percentage points. 

Looking at some of our measures obtained from the 

survey of households, the unemployment rate in November, at 

5.9 percent, was about unchanged over the month but down 

slightly from the rates recorded during the summer. The 

number of unemployed persons was little changed at 8.7 

million in November, and the number of individuals who had 

been jobless for more than half a year remained at 2.0 

million. These long-term unemployed comprised nearly 1 in 

every 4 unemployed persons.

The employment-population ratio, the proportion of the 

civilian population age 16 and over that is employed, 

increased to 62.4 percent and is up by 0.4 percentage point 

from September.
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In summary, nonfarm payroll employment rose for the 

fourth month in a row, edging up by 57,000 in November. 

The unemployment rate, at 5.9 percent, was essentially 

unchanged from October.