Some bright spots in latest U.S. jobs reports

WASHINGTON — Evidence was abundant in the November jobs report that the U.S. economy’s tentative recovery is sputtering as coronavirus cases accelerate and federal aid runs out.

All told, the Labor Department said employers added 245,000 jobs in November — the fewest since April, the fifth straight monthly slowdown and well short of the gain economists had been expecting.

Back in March and April when the virus slammed the economy, the United States lost a staggering 22 million jobs. It’s been clawing them back ever since — but at an ever-diminishing rate: 4.8 million added jobs in June, 1.8 million in July, 1.5 million in August, 711,000 in September, 610,000 in October and 245,000 in November.

But there are some positive takeaways from the report.

While retailers are contending with a fall-off in walk-in traffic and intensifying competition from e-commerce as Americans stay home, the surge in online shopping has sparked a hiring boom at warehouses and transportation companies: They added 145,000 jobs in November, the most in any month since 1997.

Builders added 27,000 workers last month, on top of 72,000 they added in October and 35,000 in September.

Fueled by record-low mortgage rates and pent-up demand from homebuyers, the housing market is defying the coronavirus. Home construction rose 4.9% in October after climbing 1.9% in September.

Sales of existing homes have risen for five straight months. In October, sales hit their highest level since February 2006, which was not long before the housing bust that triggered the 2007-2009 Great Recession.

Last month, employment grew by 136,000 jobs for Black workers and 83,000 for Hispanics but fell by 508,000 for whites. (The racial breakdown comes from a survey that is separate from the one that showed the economy gaining 245,000 jobs last month; the two surveys sometimes diverge from month to month.)

Moreover, 662,000 whites and 33,000 Hispanics dropped out of the labor force last month, while 48,000 African Americans jumped in.

U.S. job openings rose in October to a level that’s consistent with a gradual improvement in the labor market as employers seek to adjust headcounts against a backdrop of changing demand and coronavirus infection dynamics.

The number of available positions increased to 6.65 million during the month from a revised 6.49 million in September, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed last week. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists was for 6.3 million vacancies.

Job vacancies increased in health care, construction and manufacturing, the JOLTS report showed. Openings improved more moderately in leisure and hospitality and federal government. They fell in retail and business services.

Competition among those looking for work remains elevated, with 11.1 million unemployed Americans in October, leaving 1.66 jobless workers vying for every job opening during the month. That stands in contrast to a two-year trend before the pandemic during which job vacancies exceeded the number of unemployed.