(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Joe Biden called the November jobs report “grim” and said it shows “there’s no time to lose” for Congress to pass a new Covid relief bill.
The U.S. labor-market rebound slowed markedly in November, indicating the surge in Covid-19 cases is hitting workers and curbing the broader economic recovery.
“If we act now, and I mean now, we may begin to regain momentum,” he said in a speech from Wilmington, Delaware. “If we don’t act now the future will be very bleak.”
Biden noted that the unemployment rate dropped to 6.7%, but said it was “deeply troubling” that the decline was driven by people dropping out of the labor market.
Job gains missed economists’ estimates, raising odds that Biden will inherit an even weaker labor market next year.
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