New Brunswick-Area Unemployment Rate Decreases: Latest Figures

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' November jobs report was a mixed bag of positive and negative news. The unemployment rate continued to move closer to pre-pandemic levels, but the number of new jobs reported was lower than expected.

Another 210,000 jobs were added to the economy in November, which was below the expectations of many economists. However, monthly job figures have been revised upward several times this year as data is updated. The BLS revised September and October job figures up by a combined 82,000 positions.

Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate dropped from 4.6 percent to 4.2 percent from October to November, according to the BLS. The pre-pandemic unemployment rate was 3.5 percent.

The latest available local unemployment figures are for October; that rate improved since September in the New Brunswick area and continues to be lower than it was at the beginning of the pandemic.

The Middlesex County unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in October, down from 5.7 percent in September. That reflected some improvement from October 2020, when the unemployment rate stood at 6.5 percent.

The October unemployment rate in Middlesex County was also lower than the New Jersey rate of 5.5 percent, according to the latest figures from the BLS.

Nationally, the labor force participation rate — a measure of the employed share of the civilian population — increased by 0.2 percentage points to 61.8 percent. The increase was welcome news to economists, but the participation rate is still 1.5 percentage points lower than pre-pandemic levels.

Editor's note: This post was automatically generated using data from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program. National figures are seasonally-adjusted, while county and state figures are not seasonally adjusted. October's figures are preliminary. Please report any errors or other feedback to [email protected].