Employers Balk at New Hiring, Despite Growth
By LOUIS UCHITELLE

The nation's employers displayed an unexpected reluctance in November to hire more workers, despite the improving economy and rising demand for what they sell.

The work force grew by only 57,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday ? only a third of what most forecasters had projected. The jobs report pushed down stock prices and interest rates. But for many economists, there was clear evidence, too, that the recovery has staying power: the unemployment rate dipped to 5.9 percent from 6 percent in October, and November was the fourth straight month of rising employment.

"Not every single indicator is going to look like a boom," said Richard Berner, chief domestic economist for Morgan Stanley. "Now we are getting down to a strong, but less spectacular, recovery."

The Bush administration greeted the jobs data cautiously. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao noted that "many other economic indicators point toward continued job growth well into the new year." President Bush, in a speech in Baltimore, said the economy "is getting stronger."

"The productivity is high; investment is strong; the home industry is vibrant," he added.

The Democratic presidential candidates, meanwhile, were scornful. The weak jobs growth "is another link in the chain of President Bush's broken promises," said Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina declared that "the jobs market has gone from bad to mediocre."

November was the second anniversary of the recovery from the 2001 recession, and for most of the period, jobs disappeared at an alarming rate ? nearly 1.1 million in all through last July. In the turnaround since then, employers have added back 328,000 jobs, mostly in the lower-wage service sector. Higher-wage manufacturing jobs have continued to disappear, although at a slower rate than in the spring and summer.

"One can conclude that the jobless recovery is safely behind us," said Jared Bernstein, a senior labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, "but the number and quality of the jobs we are creating are still insufficient to sustain a truly robust recovery."