WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. nonfarm payrolls plunged by an astonishing 533,000 in November, the worst job loss in 34 years, the Labor Department reported Friday. It's only the fourth time in the past 58 years that payrolls have fallen by more than 500,000 in a month. Since the recession began 11 months ago, a total of 1.9 million jobs have been lost. The unemployment rate rose from 6.5% in October to 6.7% in November, the highest jobless rate since October 1993. Job losses were widespread across industries in November. Fewer than a third of industries were hiring in November. In services-producing industries, 370,000 jobs were lost, the most since August 1983. The employment report was much worse than expected. Economists expected job losses of around 350,000 in November. They expected the unemployment rate to rise to 6.8%. Job losses in September and October were revised sharply lower by a total of 199,000. Over the past three months, payrolls have fallen by an average of 419,000 per month, compared with average monthly losses of 82,000 earlier in the year. An alternative gauge of unemployment - which includes discouraged workers and those whose hours have been cut back to part-time - rose to 12.5% from 11.8%. The number of workers forced to work part-time rose by 621,000 to 7.3 million. Total hours worked in the economy fell 0.9% in November. The average workweek fell to a record-low 33.5 hours. Average hourly earnings rose by 7 cents, or 0.4%, to $18.30. In goods-producing industries, 163,000 jobs were lost, according to a survey of work places. Manufacturing lost 85,000 workers, while construction lost 82,000. In the services, 136,000 jobs were lost in business services, including 101,000 in employment services, such as temporary jobs. Financial services cut 34,000 jobs. Retail shed 91,000 jobs. Health and education services industries added 52,000 jobs. Government added 7,000. In a separate survey of households, the government found that employment fell by 673,000, the largest lost since August 2001. Unemployment rose by 251,000 to 10.3 million, while 637,000 people dropped out of the workforce.
