WASHINGTON – The U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 6.7 percent, its highest level since 1993, as the nation posted its 11th consecutive monthly decline in nonfarm payroll employment, according to data released today by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

U.S. employers eliminated 533,000 positions in November – after shedding 320,000 positions in October and 403,000 in September – bringing job cuts this year to 1.91 million, the BLS said. Upward revisions in today’s report added 199,000 job losses to the bureau’s estimates for September and October.

Last month’s job cuts – the steepest since 1974 – exceeded all 73 forecast in a survey of economists by Bloomberg News. The survey’s median forecast called for a loss of 335,000 jobs to follow the 240,000-job decline initially reported for October. (READ MORE)

“The unemployment rate, at 6.7 percent, continued to trend up in November,” rising 0.2 percentage points compared with October and 1.7 percentage points “since the recession started in December 2007, as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research,” BLS Commissioner Keith Hall told Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.

“Over the past 3 months, job losses have averaged 419,000 per month, sharply higher than the average loss of 82,000 per month from January through August,” Hall said.

Moreover, he said, “About two-thirds of the recent job declines have occurred in the service-providing sector of the economy,” whereas “in the first eight months of this year, job losses were largely limited to construction and manufacturing.”

Manufacturing payrolls shrank by 80,000 in November, while manufacturing hours and overtime both shrank by 0.2 hours compared with the month before. “Factory job losses would have been larger were it not for the return to work of 27,000 aerospace workers who had been on strike,” Hall said. But, he added, “motor vehicle and parts manufacturers shed 13,000 jobs over the month,” bringing auto-industry job losses to 135,000 since last December.

In the service sector, Hall said, “the largest loss was in employment services, which includes temporary help agencies.” The industry shed 101,000 workers in November, bringing year-to-date losses to 495,000.

“Retail-trade employment fell by 91,000 in November,” led by a 24,000-job decline in employment at auto dealerships that brought their year-to-date losses to 115,000. “Employment also decreased after seasonal adjustment in clothing stores; sporting goods, hobby, book, and music stores; and furniture and home furnishings stores,” Hall said.

“Wholesale-trade employment fell by 25,000 in November and by 123,000 so far in 2008.

“Leisure and hospitality employment contracted by 76,000 in November; the accommodation and food services industry accounted for most of the decrease,” he said.

“Elsewhere in the service-providing sector, sizable employment declines also occurred in financial activities (-32,000); transportation and warehousing (-32,000); and information (-19,000),” the BLS commissioner said.

There was one bright spot: “In contrast to most industries, health care added jobs in November,” Hall said. “Employment in the industry rose by 34,000 over the month and has increased by 341,000 so far this year. The November gain reflected jobs added in nursing and residential care facilities, hospitals and offices of physicians.”

Meanwhile, he said, “average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers in the private sector rose by 7 cents, or 0.4 percent, in November.” Compared with November 2007, hourly earnings rose 3.7 percent, lagging the October-to-October increase of 3.8 percent in the cost of living as measured by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).

The number of people listed as unemployed in November rose to 10.3 million, an increase of 2.7 million, or 35.5 percent, compared with the jobless total in December 2007.

Long-term unemployment rose even more sharply, with 2.2 million people listed in November as having been jobless for 27 weeks or more but still actively seeking work. That brought the year-to-date increase to 868,000 people, or 65.2 percent.

Underemployment also rose, Hall said. “The number of persons working part time who would have preferred full-time employment increased by 621,000 in November to 7.3 million. Thus far in 2008, the number of such workers has grown by nearly 2.7 million,” or about 58 percent.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass. “We’re well on our way to the worst recession of the postwar period.”

Additional information, including the 29-page Employment Situation Summary and the BLS Commissioner’s Statement on the Employment Situation release, is available from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics at www.bls.gov.