Construction employment shows gains

The U.S. Department of Labor announced that unemployment held steady at 5.8% in November, with the economy adding 321,000 jobs for the month. This is well above the year's 224,000-jobs-per-month average.

Construction employment also continued to trend up in November (up 20,000). Employment in specialty trade contractors rose by 21,000, mostly in the residential component. Over the past 12 months, construction has added 213,000 jobs, with just over half the gain among specialty trade contractors.

Additionally, the number of unemployed persons was virtually the same at 9.1 million. November marked a year-over-year drop in unemployment of 1.2% and 1.7 million people.

The bulk of job gains occurred in professional and business services (leading the pack at 86,000 new jobs), retail trade (50,000), health care (29,000) and manufacturing (28,000). 

Within retail trade, the heavy-hitters were the motor vehicle and parts dealers category and clothing and accessories (both up 11,000 jobs), followed by sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores (up 9,000) and nonstore retailers (6,000).

On an unadjusted basis, the number of employees at building material and garden supply stores fell slightly in November to 1,213,600, down 0.2% from 1,216,400 in October.