Payrolls May Be Shorting U.S. Job Gains as Households Find Work

American households may be signaling the job market is stronger than the payroll numbers indicate.

Employers said they took on 120,000 workers in November, bringing job gains over the past four months to 534,000, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. A separate survey of households showed 278,000 more people were employed last month, pushing the increase during the same period to 1.28 million.