The U.S. economy added a little more than 200,000 jobs during the month of November, the Labor Department said in its monthly assessment Friday — roughly half what most analysts expected.

The official jobs report said there were 210,000 new hires last month.

Most economists predicted Friday’s report would show about a half-million new jobs.

The new figure follows a stellar report a month ago that said 530,000 jobs were created in October, surpassing expectations.

The department said the unemployment rate for the month declined slightly to 4.2%.

“Notable job gains occurred in professional and business services, transportation and warehousing, construction, and manufacturing. Employment in retail trade declined over the month,” the department said in a statement.

Biden assures Americans his economy is better than any other president’s ever. He doesn’t sound healthy.

Friday’s report said the number of unemployed persons in the United States fell by 542,000, to 6.9 million, in November. That figure and the unemployment rate are both significantly better than they were in the middle of 2020, during the worst of the COVID-19 impact. But both are also still higher than prepandemic levels.

“This year, monthly job growth has averaged 555,000,” the department noted. “Nonfarm employment has increased by 18.5 million since April 2020 but is down by 3.9 million, or 2.6%, from its prepandemic level in February 2020.”

Wednesday, ADP and Moody’s Analytics reported 534,000 new jobs in the private sector in November, which topped most analysts’ projections.

On Thursday, the Labor Department reported a slight uptick in new unemployment filings last week to about 222,000. The week before, new claims plummeted to 194,000, which was the fewest for any week dating back to 1969.

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