The Department of Statistics said the unemployment rate rose to 5.8 percent last month as job creation still lagged behind population growth in the country.
The federal agency released its November labor force survey today, which showed the economy added a modest 25,000 jobs.
The manufacturing and construction sectors saw the largest job increases, while large numbers of jobs decreased in wholesale and retail trade as well as finance, insurance, real estate, rental, and investment. With labor market conditions weakening, this finding found that people who were unemployed last month were more likely to be fired than a year ago.
Weaker job market conditions come as high interest rates weigh on economic growth and a growing population in the workforce.
Even so, average hourly wages continued to grow rapidly and increased by 4.8 percent from a year ago as workers sought compensation for high inflation.
