Job growth stagnation and unemployment increase spark concerns, but experts caution jumping to conclusions

It’s said that patience is a virtue, and with the amount of waiting and seeing we’ve done with the labor market this year, we might as well all be saints.

The labor market continued to gradually cool in November, with employers adding few jobs outside of the healthcare industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest jobs report. The unemployment rate also increased, sparking worries over the economy and a potential recession—but experts say it’s (still) too early to jump to conclusions.

Diving into the data. Employers added 64,000 jobs in November, after losing 105,000 in October. The labor market has seen little net change in job growth since April, the release stated. Though payroll data was collected for October, household data for that month was not collected because of the government shutdown. The BLS also revised down the jobs numbers for August and September, with the labor market losing 26,000 jobs, and adding 108,000, respectively.

Healthcare once again led with job growth in November, adding 64,000 jobs that month, with the most pronounced growth in ambulatory health care services, hospitals, and nursing and residential care facilities.

The industry will continue to be promising for job growth because of the US’s aging population, and will offer opportunities for entry-level talent that other sectors may not have, Amy Glaser, SVP of business operations at staffing firm Adecco, told HR Brew.

“To enter the healthcare space, which projects continued growth, you don’t necessarily have to be a doctor or a physician’s assistant or even a nurse,” she said. “We’re seeing some entry-level opportunities, which I think is great news for the future workforce.”

Construction followed healthcare, adding 28,000 jobs total, with nonspecialty trade contractors making up the majority of gains in that industry.

Federal government employment declined by 6,000 in November, as well as by 162,000 in October, as the federal workers who accepted the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offers were removed from payrolls at the end of September. The federal government shrank by 271,000 jobs since January.

At the same time, the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%, the highest level seen since September 2021. Teenage unemployment rose to 16.3%, from 13.2% in September. Year over year, the unemployment rate for that cohort grew by more than three percentage points, when it was 13.1% in November 2024. The unemployment rate for Black people rose to 8.3% in November, from 7.5% in September, and 6.4% year over year.

Additionally, more workers who reported being employed part-time for “economic reasons” rose to 5.5 million in November, an increase of 909,000 from September. People in this category want to work full-time but haven’t been able to either because they can’t find opportunities, their hours have been cut back, or they’ve seen seasonal declines in business demand.

That said, the BLS warned ahead of the jobs report that parts of the data, based on the household portion of the survey, could have “slightly higher variances than usual” because of changes in data collection in November due to the government shutdown. More new households responded to the Current Population Survey than in typical months, which some economists say can inflate certain statistics including the unemployment rate, thanks to a phenomenon called rotation group bias.

Because of the impacts to the October household survey data, some economists cautioned that more time would be needed before reaching conclusions about statistics deriving from the household survey.

“We probably want to see another month or two worth of data in order to feel more confident about the level there, especially because we are actually missing the October data in full,” Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor’s chief economist, told HR Brew.

Zoom out. HR leaders can prepare for 2026 by focusing on scenario planning, Zhao said. The labor market could pick up next year, or continue to cool, and employers will want to be ready either way.

“It’s important for leaders to do scenario planning, to understand what their plans might look like if different economic scenarios played out in the new year,” he said.

Additionally, HR leaders would be wise to capitalize on the trend of employees increasingly staying put at their companies because of diminished job prospects.

“We’re seeing now, retention is actually the new recruitment,” Glaser said, adding that in the new year, she expects employers to offer more flexibility, raises, and bonuses based on output and productivity, and increase focus on employee listening.

As career growth continues to be a top priority for workers, HR leaders should expect to prioritize opportunities for the next year, Zhao said. However, that approach will likely look different from past years: HR and L&D teams are working with tighter budgets, but employees still have high expectations about job titles and pay.

“They are going to have to figure out how to give opportunities for skill development or on the job training at a lower cost,” Zhao said. This might mean, for example, giving workers stretch assignments on new teams or projects without a formal title or compensation change.

“Now, of course, the caveat to that is that workers won’t be satisfied with that forever,” Zhao said. “It’s important to be transparent with workers about what the goal of career development opportunities are in both the short term and in the long term.”