Several news stories noted the revisions to prior months' data now show a 4,000 job gain for November. It is important to note that this is not especially positive news. The job gain no reported for November is entirely attributable to the fact that the job loss for October was revised upward by 16,000. The net effect of the revisions to the data for the two months was to show 1,000 more lost jobs than indicated in the prior release. It is difficult to see how this can be viewed as positive.
--Dean Baker