--- title: "US Adds Just 64000 Jobs in November | Metaintro" canonical: "https://www.metaintro.com/blog/us-adds-just-64000-jobs-november" language: "en" author: "drashtigarach" published: "2025-12-16T11:30:00.000Z" modified: "2025-12-16T16:22:21.550Z" --- [Back to Blog](/blog) [Information](/blog/tag/information)[Jobs](/blog/tag/jobs) # US Adds Just 64000 Jobs in November November jobs report shows US employers added only 64,000 positions with unemployment holding at 4.4 percent as hiring momentum stalls amid Trump tariff uncertainty, AI automation, and federal workforce cuts from government shutdown. [![Drashti Garach](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:40:40/q:72/plain/images/5719d740-e510-42bc-8017-e040d145f35f_1766029465094.png)Drashti Garach @DrashtiGarach](/blog/author/drashtigarach) [December 16, 2025](/blog/archive/2025/12)8 min read ![US Adds Just 64000 Jobs in November](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:1200:675/q:78/plain/images/helpwanted-4.png) [https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november](https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november)[http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november)[https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november&title=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november&title=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November)[mailto:?subject=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november](mailto:?subject=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november) American companies are holding onto the employees they have. But they are not hiring new ones. The November jobs report, released Tuesday 11 days late due to a 43-day government shutdown, confirms what workers already know: finding a job in this market is brutal. The [Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/) reported that employers added 64,000 jobs in November, slightly better than the forecasted 40,000 but still representing a dramatic slowdown from the 400,000 monthly average during the 2021-2023 hiring boom. The unemployment rate held at 4.4 percent, unchanged from September and the highest level since September 2021. The report came with significant caveats. Publication was delayed by more than a week because of the federal funding lapse from October 1 through November 12. Both the household and establishment surveys required additional data collection and processing time. The November estimates carry higher than usual standard errors due to lower survey response rates, composite weighting changes, and using a two-month analysis period rather than one month. More troubling: the report includes no October unemployment rate because the BLS could not calculate it during the shutdown. October payroll data will be released alongside November figures, expected to show a major drop in federal government jobs reflecting billionaire Elon Musk's purge of the federal workforce as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. ## The Federal Workforce Bloodbath Analysts at [Evercore ISI](https://www.evercore.com/) noted that about 150,000 federal workers agreed to take buyouts under pressure from DOGE. Of those, 100,000 likely left when the 2025 fiscal year ended on September 30, pushing down October payrolls. The remaining 50,000 stayed through the calendar year and their departures will show up in the January 2026 jobs report. That represents roughly 5 percent of overall federal employment. While a sliver of total US employment, the bulk decrease distorts the data and makes it difficult to assess the true health of the private sector job market. "It's possible that October could show a net loss of 65,000 jobs," wrote economist Aneesh Mishra, estimating a loss of 120,000 public sector jobs offset by a 55,000 private sector gain. The federal job cuts continue a broader trend. Employment rose in healthcare and construction in November, but federal government jobs kept falling month after month. ## Powell Delivers Grim Assessment [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreserve.gov/) Chair [Jerome Powell](https://www.federalreserve.gov/) warned after last week's rate cut that the job market is even weaker than official data suggest. Government figures show the economy added less than 40,000 jobs monthly since April. But even that overstates hiring, Powell said. He suspects revisions could reduce payrolls by as much as 60,000 jobs per month. That would mean employers have not been adding jobs at all. Instead, they have been cutting 20,000 monthly since spring. "It's a labor market that seems to have significant downside risks," Powell told reporters at his December 10 press conference. Labor Department revisions in September already showed the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year ending March. That meant employers added an average of just 71,000 new jobs monthly over that period, not the 147,000 first reported. Since March, job creation fell further to an average 59,000 monthly. The unemployment rate, though still modest by historical standards, has risen steadily since bottoming at a 54-year low of 3.4 percent in April 2023. It has climbed 0.4 percentage points since Trump took office in January 2025. ## What Is Killing Job Growth Multiple factors are choking hiring. Trump tariff uncertainty tops the list. Companies struggle to assess how double-digit taxes on imports will affect their operations and costs. They are postponing hiring decisions until they understand the full impact. The lingering effects of high interest rates the Fed engineered in 2022 and 2023 to fight inflation continue weighing on business expansion. While the Fed has cut rates three times this year, the cumulative effect of previous tight monetary policy still constrains growth. Artificial intelligence and automation are reducing demand for workers in ways that are difficult to quantify but increasingly visible. "We've seen a lot of the businesses that we support are stuck in that stagnant mode: 'Are we going to hire or are we not? What can we automate? What do we need the human touch with?'" said Matt Hobbie, vice president of staffing firm HealthSkil in Allentown, Pennsylvania. "We're in Lehigh Valley, which is a big transportation hub in eastern Pennsylvania. We've seen some cooling in the logistics and transportation markets, specifically because we've seen automation in those sectors, robotics." Staffing firm [Challenger, Gray & Christmas](https://www.challengergray.com/) reported announcements of 153,000 job cuts in September and around 1 million so far in 2025, up 65 percent from 2024. Many businesses are cutting jobs or allowing levels to fall through attrition in connection with actual or anticipated productivity gains from AI. ## Job Seekers Face Brutal Competition The unemployment duration data reveals how hard finding work has become. The typical unemployed person was without a job for 10 weeks in September, up from previous periods. Someone who became unemployed in mid-September typically will not find reemployment until December. The burden falls disproportionately on certain groups. Black women spent 18.5 weeks unemployed in September, 7.5 weeks more than their 2024 median and 8.2 more weeks than white men. Black women's unemployment rate rose to 7.5 percent while their labor force participation dropped from 62.4 percent in January to 61.9 percent in September. Economists often cite Black unemployment as the "canary in the coalmine" for labor market health. Rising unemployment rates and duration for Black women signal trouble ahead for other workers. Discouraged workers are leaving the labor force entirely. In September, 537,000 people stopped applying for jobs because they believed no work was available, up 105,000 or 20 percent from the year prior. They represent approximately 30 percent of people not in the labor force but available and wanting jobs. [The Center for American Progress](https://www.americanprogress.org/) notes that as people remain unemployed for longer, they risk exhausting state unemployment benefits eligibility and losing critical income support while searching. The average weekly benefit of $458.80 in July replaced roughly 37 percent of weekly wages. In 33 states and DC, unemployment benefits replace less than half of former wages, leaving significant budget gaps. ## The Fed Faces Impossible Choices The weak labor market data pushed the Fed to cut its benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point last week for the third time this year. But three Fed officials refused to go along, the most dissents in six years. Some Fed officials are balking at further cuts while inflation remains above the central bank's 2 percent target. Two voted to keep rates unchanged. Stephen Miran, appointed by Trump to the Fed's governing board in September, voted for a bigger cut in line with what the president demands. Powell must navigate divided opinions on his committee while working with incomplete data. "I think it bears being humble going into the report and being prepared for anything," said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/), before Tuesday's release. The Fed projects unemployment will remain elevated in 2026. Private sector forecasts point to real GDP growth in the second half of 2025 close to the modest first-half pace, representing significant slowing from last year. The government shutdown lowered fourth quarter growth, though effects should be offset by higher growth next quarter reflecting the reopening. ## The Data Deluge Complicates Everything The 43-day funding lapse created a flash-freeze of crucial economic data at a critical juncture. The slow thaw over the past month is building into a deluge this week. Major reports on retail sales, inflation and the labor market are being released in rapid succession. The jobs report and [Consumer Price Index](https://www.bls.gov/cpi) release for November both come packaged with roughly half of October's data, making it difficult to parse which trends belong to which month and what represents genuine change versus data collection artifacts. The BLS, which has robust transparency practices, inserted box notes into the November report explaining the shutdown impact and warning of higher than usual uncertainty. Without October data, the composite weighting formula was adjusted by shifting previously-collected data forward one month. "These government shutdowns don't come around very often, and so there's always a little bit of uncertainty when you have an operation as large as what the BLS does for the jobs report," Zhao said. Looking for opportunities in a tough job market? [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com) connects you with verified hiring companies across 120+ countries. Find roles that match your skills even when hiring slows. ### Share this article [https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november](https://x.com/intent/tweet?text=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november)[http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november)[https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november&title=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november&title=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November)[mailto:?subject=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november](mailto:?subject=US%20Adds%20Just%2064000%20Jobs%20in%20November&body=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.metaintro.com%2Fblog%2Fus-adds-just-64000-jobs-november) For job seekers ## Your next role is already posted. 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