On the evening of December 16th, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the November employment data, which was slightly better than expected—adding 64,000 jobs, compared to the forecast of only 45,000, a clear rebound from October's "loss of 105,000 jobs."

However, the unemployment rate did not follow suit: it rose to 4.6% in November, slightly higher than the expected 4.5%. Additionally, the unemployment rate for September was 4.4%. The October unemployment rate was not published due to the previous government shutdown, which prevented data collection.

To add some context on why jobs fell sharply in October—marking the largest decline since the end of 2020—the main reason was a reduction of 162,000 federal government jobs. Those employees participating in Trump's "Deferred Resignation" program were officially removed from the government payroll in October, leading to a significant drop in the data for that month.