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Missouri labor market shows promising boost in November

While 2020 labor losses still show well below 2019 levels, Missouri jobs increased by 17,400 in November, providing a healthy boost to the state’s labor market. Unemployment dropped 0.2 percentage points from October and civilian labor went up more than 23,000.

The Missouri labor market showed further improvement in November 2020. Employment, seasonally adjusted, increased by 17,400 jobs over the month. The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points from October 2020 to November 2020, and the civilian labor force increased more than 23,000.

However, the labor market still showed substantial losses from 2019 levels, and a third wave of COVID-19 infections pose a threat of renewed economic challenges in the coming months. 

Missouri’s smoothed seasonally adjusted unemployment rate went down by 0.2 percentage points in November 2020, decreasing to 4.4 percent from the October 2020 rate of 4.6 percent.

Missouri’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has now been either below or equal to the national rate for 68 consecutive months. The national unemployment rate was 6.7 percent in November 2020, also down 0.2 percentage points from 6.9 percent in October 2020.

The estimated number of unemployed Missourians was 131,215 in November 2020, down by 4,766 from October’s 135,981.

Due to lingering layoffs from COVID-19 impacts, the state’s November 2020 rate was still 1 percentage point higher than the November 2019 rate.