http://blog.american.com/2011/12/nov...till-terrible/

As anyone that's been looking for work in the past 3 years can tell you, things haven't changed much. Perhaps the good news would be that fewer people hope for a better position so they aren't looking any longer. Fewer people clamoring for the few good jobs?

...1. The red flag here is the sharp drop in the size of the labor force versus October. The participation rate fell from an already low 64.2 percent to 64.0 percent. In a strong jobs recovery, that number should be rising as more people look for work. If the labor force participation rate were back at its January 2009 level, the U-3 rate would be 11.0 percent.
2. As it is, the broader U-6 rate — which includes part timers who wish they were full timers — is still a sky-high 15.6 percent, down from 16.2 percent last month.
3. The broadest measure of employment is the employment/population ratio and it rose to 58.5 percent from 58.4 percent. But as MKM Partners notes: “The employment/population ratio has averaged 58.4 since December 2009, meaning there has essentially been no real progress on employment in two years’ time. … In other words, we are not growing fast enough to reduce the so-called output gap/labor market slack.”
4. The workweek was flat, at 34.3 hours in November, but aggregate hours worked actually fell 0.1 percent after two months of relatively strong gains. (MKM)
5. Nominal wages also slipped in November for the first time since August. MKM: “The product of hours worked and wages paid is a proxy for nominal income, and it has decelerated to a 2.6% annualized rate over the last six months from just over a 4% rate this summer (prior to the sharp tightening in financial conditions). … While the economic data have been better of late, we remain concerned that we are seeing a bounce back from a series of supply shocks earlier in the year that may not be sustained against the foliage of tighter financial conditions, a deep recession in Europe and a sharp slowdown in China and emerging-market countries.”
6. We may not have seen the last of the unemployment 9-handle given a likely growth slowdown next year. As IHS Global Insight notes:

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