Employers added 263,000 jobs in November

America’s jobs engine kept churning in November, the Labor Department reported Friday, a show of continued demand for workers despite the Federal Reserve’s push to curb inflation by tamping down hiring.

Employers created 263,000 jobs, even as a wave of layoffs in the tech industry made headlines. That was only a slight drop from the revised figure of 284,000 for October.

The unemployment rate was steady at 3.7%, while wages have risen 5.1% over the year, more than expected.

The labor market has been surprisingly resilient in the face of successive interest rate increases by the Fed, adding an average of 323,000 jobs for the past six months.

But economists found reasons for concern in the evidence that growth is now largely coming from service sectors like education, health care and hospitality, which powered November’s job gains. Hiring in industries most sensitive to rising borrowing costs, like construction and manufacturing, started to level off, and workers put in fewer hours during the average week.

“I don’t want to paint this as a weak report by any stretch, because it’s not,” said Drew Matus, chief market strategist at MetLife Investment Management. “But I do think there are parts of it that just don’t ring like something that’s repeatable month in and month out.”

Hotels and restaurants continue to regain their losses, though the leisure and hospitality industry remains 5.8% – nearly 1 million jobs – below its pre-pandemic level. Retailing was among the few industries to lose jobs, as employers like Walmart announced lower than usual holiday hiring, although the volatility of the past few years has made that data more difficult to accurately assess.

Businesses, while treading cautiously, have generally still found reason to expand.

Health care has seen some of the highest job-opening rates in the economy as employers seek to win back workers who bore the brunt of dealing with COVID-19. More broadly, job postings and the share of workers quitting their jobs have been declining from record highs earlier in the year, while initial claims for unemployment insurance have remained low.

Transportation and warehousing is one sector where hiring has stalled, losing about 15,000 jobs in November .