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 2, 2005

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 215,000 in 

November, and the unemployment rate, at 5.0 percent, was 

unchanged over the month. 

The November employment increase follows little job 

growth in September (+17,000) and October (+44,000), as 

revised. The September weakness was clearly associated 

with the devastating direct effects of Hurricane Katrina, 

and it is possible that October’s job growth was held down 

somewhat by the indirect effects of Hurricanes Katrina and 

Rita. To put the November increase in perspective, from 

January through August of this year, payroll employment 

growth averaged 196,000 per month. 

Looking at some of the industry detail from the 

payroll survey, there were over-the-month gains across a 

wide array of industries. Construction employment rose by 
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37,000 in November, following a gain of 35,000 in October. 

For the 12 months prior to October, construction employment 

expanded by an average of 24,000 per month. Some of the 

recent job gains in construction reflect rebuilding and 

clean-up efforts following Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and 

Wilma. In November, for example, there was a substantial 

employment increase in heavy construction, which includes 

utility, road, and other major infrastructure work. 

Education and health services added 36,000 jobs over 

the month, in line with recent trend growth in the 

industry. The bulk of November’s job growth occurred in 

health care and social assistance (+27,000). Over the 12 

months ending in November, 263,000 jobs have been added in 

health care and 74,000 jobs in social assistance.

In November, job growth resumed in food services and 

drinking places (+39,000). Employment fell in this 

industry in each of the prior 2 months; at least some of 

these declines were hurricane related. For the 12 months 

ending in August, employment in food services expanded by 

283,000.

In professional and business services, job gains 

continued in architectural and engineering services, 

computer systems design, and management and consulting 
3

services. Job growth in temporary help services was weak 

for the second month in a row.

Wholesale trade employment continued to trend up; 

nearly all of the over-the-month gain occurred in durable 

goods distribution. In retail trade, overall employment 

was basically unchanged in November. A job gain in 

building material and garden supply stores was offset by a 

loss among automobile dealers. For auto dealers, the 

November job decline was the second in a row. 

The number of factory jobs edged up in November, 

reflecting small gains in a number of durable goods 

manufacturing industries. Noteworthy increases occurred in 

wood products and in computer and electronics. The factory 

workweek fell by 0.2 hour over the month, following a 

0.3-hour increase in October. 

Average hourly earnings of production or 

nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 

3 cents in November to $16.32, following a 10-cent jump in 

October (as revised). Over the year, average hourly 

earnings were up by 3.2 percent.

Looking at some of the measures obtained from the 

survey of households, the unemployment rate, at 5.0 

percent, was unchanged in November. The jobless rate has 

held at or near this level since May. Unemployment rates 
4

for most major worker groups showed little or no change 

over the month, although the rate for blacks rose to 10.6 

percent. The labor force participation rate held steady 

over the month at 66.1 percent, and the employmentpopulation ratio was essentially unchanged at 62.8 percent.

Last month we released our first set of data from a 

special series of questions added to the household survey 

to identify and gather information from survey respondents 

who had evacuated from their homes because of Hurricane 

Katrina. As we emphasized last month, the estimates are 

not representative of all evacuees, but only those who were 

interviewed through normal household survey procedures. We 

do not gather information on those evacuees who remain 

outside the scope of the survey, such as those currently 

living in hotels or shelters.

The November update of these data indicates that there 

were nearly 900,000 persons age 16 and over who evacuated 

from where they were living in August due to Hurricane 

Katrina. Half of these persons had returned to the home 

from which they had evacuated by November; the other half 

had not returned.

Of the 900,000 evacuees identified in the November 

survey, a little more than half were in the labor force 

with an unemployment rate of 20.5 percent. Consistent with 
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the October estimates, the November data show that the 

jobless rate for those who had not returned home (27.8 

percent) was well above the rate for those who had returned 

to their August place of residence (12.5 percent). 

In summary, employment rose in November (+215,000),

following 2 months when job growth was held down by the 

direct and indirect effects of the hurricanes that struck 

the Gulf Coast. The unemployment rate held at 5.0 percent.