US jobs growth falls far short of expectations
WASHINGTON - US employers hired only 210, 000 more workers in November, missing economists' predictions for stronger growth.
Forecasters had been expecting US non-farm payrolls to increase by 550, 000.
However, the unemployment rate dropped sharply to 4.2 percent and more Americans returned to the work force.
The mixed jobs data does not reflect the emergence of the Omicron variant at the end of November which could affect the economic recovery.
President Joe Biden described the jobs recovery as "very strong," despite the disappointing headline figure.
"Today's historic drop in unemployment rate includes dramatic improvements for workers," he said.
The rate dropped from 4.6 percent in October.
Wages also rose month on month and many employers have been offering additional improvements to working conditions to attract scarce labour.
"The trend is in the right direction," said Diane Swonk chief economist at Grant Thornton. "The overall labour market is healing much more rapidly than we expected despite the miss in payrolls."
She said the apparent contradiction between sharply falling unemployment and slower than anticipated jobs growth lay in the way each was measured, through two different surveys with one covering households and the other based on employers' data.
The outlook for the US economy is set to be complicated by the arrival of the Omicron strain of the coronavirus.
"The new coronavirus Omicron variant, which has yet to fully establish itself in the US, is still the real unknown variable in relation to the pace of the jobs recovery," said Charles Hepworth, investment director at GAM Investments.