Families and small business owners in the Gulf states and Florida will continue to rebuild their lives in the wake of the fall hurricanes for months and years to come. And we should all continue to keep them in our thoughts and prayers.
But, our overall economy is showing just how resilient it is. And this will help all of us prosper in the year ahead.
Gas prices are now lower than they were last September according to AAA.
And employment remains strong as seen in today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some highlights:
– Job growth returned to pre-hurricane levels as 215,000 new payroll jobs were created in November.
– It also appears that the impact of the hurricanes on the U.S. economy as a whole was more contained than previously thought as September’s hurricane-related losses of 8,000 jobs were revised to a gain of 17,000 new jobs. October job gains were revised slightly downward however, from 56,000 to 44,000.
– Regardless of the temporary effects of the hurricanes, over 4.5 million new payroll jobs have been created since the recession ended 30 months ago.
– The November unemployment rate (calculated from the household survey of employment) remained unchanged from October at 5.0%.
– In November, the BLS returned to standard data collecting procedures from the revised methods used following the hurricanes. From those revised methods is insight into the local employment impact of the hurricanes. According to the BLS, “The unemployment rate for persons identified as evacuees was 20.5 percent; it was much higher for those who had not returned home (27.8 percent) than for those who had returned (12.5 percent).”
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