US gains a robust 266,000 jobs; unemployment falls to 3.5%

Author: Associated Press
Published: Updated:
FILE – In this Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017, photo, a recruiter in the shale gas industry, left, speaks with an attendee of a job fair in Cheswick, Pa. Employers in the United States are thought to have kept up their brisk pace of hiring in June 2018, reflecting the durability of the second-longest U.S. economic expansion on record even in the face of a trade war with China. Economists have estimated that 195,000 jobs were added last month and that the unemployment rate remained at an 18-year low of 3.8 percent, according to data provider FactSet. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic, File)

Hiring in the United States jumped last month to its highest level since January as U.S. employers shrugged off global trade conflicts and added 266,000 jobs.

The Labor Department says the unemployment rate declined to 3.5% from 3.6% in October, matching a half-century low. And wages rose a solid 3.1% in November compared with a year earlier.

The healthy job gain runs against a widespread view that businesses are struggling to find workers with unemployment so low. Persistent hiring should help keep consumers spending – a key engine of growth as businesses have cut their investment spending and exports have stalled.

Monthly job gains have in fact accelerated since this summer, averaging 205,000 over the past three months, up from just 135,000 in July.

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