America Created 263,000 Jobs in November

Economists had expected the economy to add 200,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to remain unchanged at 3.7 percent.

“In the labor market, demand for workers far exceeds the supply of available workers, and nominal wages have been growing at a pace well above what would be consistent with 2 percent inflation over time.

Thus, another condition we are looking for is the restoration of balance between supply and demand in the labor market,” Fed chairman Jerome Powell said this week.

The supply of labor has been persistently below prepandemic levels, with a larger share of Americans preferring to remain outside the workforce.

The average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose or 0.6 percent.

In November, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 0.7 percent.