120,000 new jobs were created in the month of November 2011.
The private sector generated 140,000 new jobs, but the government sector continued to shed jobs, 20,000 jobs, in November 2011.
278,000 more people reported themselves as working in November 2011.
The unemployment rate dropped four-tenths of one percent to 8.6%, declining from 9.0% in October. The unemployment rate has exceeded or equaled 9.0% for 7 months this year. The last time that the unemployment rate was at or below 8.6% was March 2009. Though this is a big step in the right direction, much of the improvement in the unemployment rate this month was due to people dropping out of the labor force. The size of the civilian labor force (consisting of people working and people actively looking for work) had been increasing for most of the this year.
