December 2000 — 2000-12-08

Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Good morning. I am pleased to have this opportunity to comment on the November employment and unemployment statistics that we released this morning. The unemployment rate was 4.0 percent in November, essentially unchanged from October. In fact, this key labor market measure has remained within 0.1 percentage point of its current level since the fall of 1999. A large decline in government employment in November held the overall gain in nonfarm payroll jobs to a modest 94,000. The private sector added 148,000 jobs; by comparison, the average monthly gain for all of 1999 was 202,000 and for the first half of 2000, it was 186,000. In the last 5 months, however, private-sector job growth has slowed to an average of 122,000 a month.