Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/10/2010 -- The job market showed an unexpected dip in November, producing only a net total of 39,000 nonfarm jobs.

The data comes from the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report. Private companies were able to add 50,000 jobs but government job losses amounted to 11,000.

This brought the net job gain to only 39,000 for November. The jobless rate also rose to 9.8 percent from 9.6 percent where it had stayed stuck for several months. Economists had predicted that November would show a robust jobs growth of around 150,000 jobs.

Most of the hiring in the private sector was temporary help for the Thanksgiving and Christmas season. The positions are generally in retail chain stores and postal delivery companies. This means that beginning in January a lot of people are going to be laid off once the packages are delivered and the sales season ends. BLS employment section chief Tom Nardone has said that around 2.5 million workers could be let go beginning next year.

Despite the miserable jobs growth, the fact remains that 150,000 jobs need to be created every month just to keep pace with the population growth. CEO A. Harrison Barnes of Hound says that the latest jobs report proves that people need to hold on to whatever work they can get. Hound is a job search engine and it has been able to find over 21,000 jobs in a day.