Jobs report: President Biden focuses on low unemployment rate, says recovery has a ways to go

Yahoo Finance’s Jessica Smith breaks down the November jobs report and President Biden's comments on beating COVID-19 and the state of the labor market recovery.

Video Transcript

- Dr. Johnson, are you going to talk to Putin too Mr. president?

- Did you talk to Putin this morning, Mr. President?

- There, all right, you just heard there from President Joe Biden admitting he has a cold right now, altering a bit of what we normally hear from him but again confirming and really trying to put some confidence into this recovery after we got that jobs number come out far weaker than expected.

Actually for the month of November there and the jobs number, we got the weakest number of jobs added by employers here in the year 2021 as more people try and digest what omicron is doing to the recovery.

You heard President Joe Biden there saying that the US is doing everything it can to make sure it manages the uptick in cases in the fears around some of those cases making their way, as we've already seen confirmed cases here in the US.

But I want to start here in our hours with a closer look at that jobs report. As I said, the weakest number of jobs added on the year, just 210,000 for the month of November comparing to an expectation there as you see on the screen, 550,000 jobs added worthy expectations. According to the Bloomberg report there.

And for more on what we saw in this jobs report, the reaction there from President Biden. I want to want to bring on Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith who joins us from Washington, DC. Jess, you were listening there to the president as well but overall much weaker here in terms of what we saw in this report, that people were expecting.

JESSICA SMITH: Yeah. And you heard President Biden there trying to focus on the highlights of this report, focusing on that low unemployment rate. You heard the president say that the economy is much stronger than it was a year ago, saying that America is back to work though the recovery still has a ways to go.

We really did see a mixed picture in the November unemployment report. Non-farm payrolls, as you mentioned, rose by 210,000, that's below expectations of 550,000. Unemployment rate fell to 4.2%, that's better than the expectations of 4.5%. And then you also see the average hourly earnings rose 4.8% year over year and 0.3% month over month. The Labor force participation rate edged higher to 61.8% in November, still lower than what it was before the pandemic.

And if look at some of the notable sectors here, professional and business services added 90,000 jobs, transportation and warehousing added about 50,000, construction added back 31,000 in November as did manufacturing. And then looking at leisure and hospitality, which have been seeing some of the biggest job gains this year, added just 23,000 jobs. And overall, it's still more than one million jobs short of pre-pandemic levels. Retail also lost 28,000 jobs.

There were also some revisions for the September and October reports, adding up to 82,000 more jobs than previously reported. Of course, this data was collected before the new COVID variant emerge but there are going to be concerns going forward about how it will impact hiring and people's willingness to go back to work. We asked Labor Secretary Marty Walsh about that this morning, here's what he had to say.

MARTY WALSH: I think there's a lot of psychological effects of the pandemic on a lot of people. And I don't think it's just about the omicron variant, I think it's overall psychological impacts of COVID-19. And I think that we have to address that issue.

And I think that, you know, I've said it as many times as possible when I was the mayor and sometimes here as Secretary of Labor to people that are watching, if you feel stressed, you feel concerned, go talk to somebody. This has been a very difficult time for a lot of people, families have been concerned about their health, families have lost loved ones, families have lost their jobs. There's a lot of uncertainty right now.

JESSICA SMITH: Again, the Biden administration is really trying to focus on the highlights of this report. The president stressed that nearly six million jobs have been added back since his inauguration but he did say there is still more work to do. Here's President Biden just a few minutes ago.

JOE BIDEN: It's not enough to know that we're making progress, you need to see it and feel it in your own lives as you're around the kitchen table and your checkbooks. And that's why every day my team and I are working to deliver consistent determined focused action to overcome the challenges we still face.

JESSICA SMITH: In order to continue the recovery, President Biden urged Congress to pass his Build Back Better plan that roughly $2 trillion spending plan, saying that that will help going forward. But, again, those two big numbers here, 210,000 jobs added in November, far below expectations the unemployment rate at 4.2%. Zach.

- Yeah. You know, we've talked about the unemployment rate coming down and what it means to have a lower number there in terms of relative math around the labor force participation rate and how that's come down in the pandemic as well. So a lot of that maybe not the right kind of moves you want to see in unemployment but still something that the president is going to be pointing to.

You also look at wage growth for the lowest income earners too. They're the only ones that I think have seen a significant upside in terms of wage growth relative to inflation eating away at some of that. So there is some of that happening on the lowest income spectrum. The other big celebration point I suppose out in Washington D.C, Jessica, is around the government shutdown being avoided and what was done to kind of get both sides to get that finally done.

We saw the can kicked down the road before. What do we know about, I guess, what it took to get there and the crisis that was averted? We've heard Janet Yellen talking a lot about economic catastrophe that would have ensued.

JESSICA SMITH: Yeah. The government shutdown was averted at least for a short period of time until February 18th. Congress was able to agree on the short term spending Bill to avoid a shutdown at midnight tonight. President Biden said just a few minutes ago that he would be signing that.

But we do still have the debt ceiling deadline coming up, could be roughly December 15th or a little bit after that, something that lawmakers are going to have to work out next. And that is what we've heard Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning about, saying how damaging that would be to the US economy. So, one thing kind of pushed to the back corner for now but now the debt limit debate is definitely going to be in focus here in Washington.