Last Friday (December 4, 2015), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the latest – Employment Situation Summary – November 2015 – which showed that “Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 211,000 in November, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent”. According to the press reports the data was above expectations and will probably help the US Federal Reserve Bank decide to increase the policy interest rate when it next meets on December 15 and 16. The revised data for September and October also indicated that the US economy had added (net) employment above what had originally been reported. On average, the US labour market has added 237,000 net jobs per month over the last 12 months. What I was curious about was whether these were predominantly low paid jobs or not. I found that the jobs lost in low-pay sectors in the downturn have more than being offset by jobs added in these sectors in the upturn. However, the massive number of jobs lost in above-average paying sectors have not yet been recovered in the upturn. In other words there is a bias in employment generation towards sectors that on average pay below average weekly earnings.