This Year Could Be Best for Hiring Since 1999

With the November jobs report in, America is poised to have its best year for job gains since 1999. Last month, 321,000 jobs were added, and the unemployment rate held steady at 5.8%. According to the Wall Street Journal, economists had expected just 230,000 jobs. More good news: Both October's and September's jobs numbers were revised upward. October went from 214,000 to 243,000, while September went from 256,000 to 271,000.

November saw the strongest pace of hiring in almost three years, the AP reports, calling that "the latest sign the United States is outperforming other major economies by growing steadily and generating consistently healthy job gains." So far this year, an average of 241,000 jobs have been added per month. At the Journal, Paul Vigna adds some perspective by looking at the change in average hourly wages (up 9 cents over October) and the average workweek (up 0.1 hour): "That works out to a gain in average hourly earnings of 2.1% from a year ago. That's a number that may be running ahead of official measures of inflation, but is so close to it as to be virtually indistinguishable when it all gets mingled inside your wallet." (More jobs report stories.)