The troubled US labour market saw a dramatic improvement in November as the number of jobs lost narrowed to 11,000 and the unemployment rate dipped to 10%, official data showed today.
The Labor Department jobs figures showed a massive improvement from October and earlier months and suggested the US economy was nearing job growth needed to sustain a fragile recovery from recession.
The Labor Department also revised its data from the prior two months to show fewer job loses than earlier estimated - 111,000 losses in October instead of 190,000 and 139,000 in September instead of 219,000.
The report was far better than analyst expectations for a loss of 125,000 jobs and a jobless rate unchanged from October at 10.2%.
Today's report showed the goods-producing sectors lost 69,000 jobs including 41,000 in manufacturing and 27,000 in construction. But services - which represents the largest number of jobs - saw growth of 58,000 jobs.
Within services, retail trade lost 15,000 jobs but professional and business services added a hefty 86,000 while education and health services saw an increase of 40,000.
Weekly hours worked, sometimes seen as a proxy for economic activity, increased by 0.6%, while average hourly earnings rose 0.1%.
Analysts said that the employment picture remained weak in economically critical sectors such as retailing, manufacturing and construction.
