The US unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to a more-than-two-year low of 8.6 per cent in November, from 9.0 percent the previous month, the US Labor Department reported Friday. The rate has remained near 9 per cent for months - hovering between 9 and 9.2 per cent since April - and economists had expected that figure to hold steady. The November figures are the lowest since March 2009. "We need to keep that growth going," President Barack Obama said as he toured a government building being upgraded in Washington. He called on Congress to do more to boost job creation and cut payroll taxes for working Americans. However, about half of the decline was due to fewer people looking for work, as the workforce shrank by about 315,000 people, with the other half due to growth in employment. Obama pointed to the addition of 140,000 private sector jobs, in what was the 21st straight month of private sector growth. But the 3 million jobs created during that time period, still fall far short of the more the 8 million jobs lost during the economic downturn. The economy added fewer jobs that expected, with payrolls increasing by 120,000, still fewer than the 125,000 anticipated by economists surveyed by Bloomberg financial news. "It's good news, not great news," Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Inc, told Bloomberg. "The labour market is gradually healing. I wouldn't take huge comfort that the unemployment rate is falling but some comfort that it's edging down.
