NEW YORK, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.6 percent in November, the highest level since October 2021, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Tuesday.

The number of unemployed people increased to 7.8 million in November, up from 7.1 million in the same period of 2024.

In particular, the number of jobless people for less than 5 weeks totaled 2.5 million in November, up by 316,000 from September. The number of long-term unemployed inched up to 1.9 million in November and accounted for 24.3 percent of all unemployed people.

Also, the labor force participation rate moved up to 62.5 percent in November, higher than 62.4 percent in September.

The United States added 64,000 non-farm payrolls in November, higher than the forecast consensus of 40,000. Payrolls in health care, construction and social assistance saw growth while losses were reported in transportation and warehousing as well as the federal government.

However, non-farm payrolls shrank as much as 162,000 in October "as some federal employees who accepted a deferred resignation offer came off federal payrolls," according to the BLS.

In November, the average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up 0.1 percent to 36.86 U.S. dollars with year-on-year growth falling to 3.5 percent.

The BLS didn't publish unemployment data in October as "household survey data were not collected for October 2025 due to the lapse in appropriations and were not collected retroactively."

Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, said the U.S. economy is in a jobs recession with only 100,000 jobs added in the past six months.

The Federal Reserve is unlikely to put much weight on the latest labor market report given data disruptions, said Kay Haigh, global co-head of fixed income and liquidity solutions at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

"We're going to get data, but we're going to have to look at it carefully and with a somewhat skeptical eye," Fed Chair Jerome Powell said at a press conference following the latest monetary policy meeting on Dec. 10. ■