>> lehrer: and mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> look what others aredoiung. >> lehrer: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by bnsf railway. and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: the november jobs report came out today, and it showed new job creation and a surprising drop in unemployment. it also gave president obama some progress to point to as congress battled over bills to help those working and those out of work. >> this morning, we learned that our economy added another 140,000 private-sector jobs in november. the unemployment rate went down. >> brown: at a construction site in washington this morning, the president was eager to plug the news from the labor department. the economy scored a net gain of 120,000 jobs, combining the 140,000 created in the private sector with the loss of 20,000 government jobs. the increased hiring came mostly in retail and hospitality industries, helped by businesses adding staff for the holidays. that helped push the unemployment rate down to 8.6%, the lowest in nearly two and a half years. moreover, the number of jobs added in previous months was revised upward for the fourth month in a row. but improvements to the jobless rate were not all due to good news. today's data also showed that 300,000 americans left the work force altogether, and so were no longer counted as unemployed. officially, 13.3 million people remained unemployed. and for the thousands lining up at job fairs around the country today, the struggle continues. >> if you don't have a job, you don't eat. so i really need this. >> brown: at the capitol, republican house speaker john boehner focused on that side of the picture. >> any job creation is welcome news, but the jobless rate in our country is still unacceptably high. today marks the 34th consecutive month of unemployment above 8%, and as you may remember, the obama administration promised that unemployment would not exceed 8% if we passed their stimulus bill. that promise has gone unfulfilled. >> brown: in the meantime, congress continued to wrestle with two key job-related issues: last night, senate democrats and republicans blocked each other's proposals for extending the payroll tax cut due to expire december 31. the president raised the issue today as he and former president clinton touted plans to create jobs by making buildings more energy efficient. he insisted congress act on the payroll tax extension. >> we need to get this done. and i expect that it's going to get done before congress leaves. otherwise, congress may not be leaving, and we can all spend christmas here together. >> brown: there's division in republican ranks, with many saying the payroll tax cut has run up more debt, but done nothing to create jobs. at a meeting of house republicans today, arizona congressman jeff flake said many rank and filers were opposed to an extension. >> most of the people standing up were troubled with moving ahead on this. >> brown: at the same time, flake said there's fear of a voter backlash if they don't extend the tax cut. >> people are concerned that our constituents won't understand this. all they know is that they'll get a hit, as i will, as everybody will if you get rid of this payroll tax holiday. >> brown: the house and senate also have to consider extending benefits for the long-term unemployed. they, too, are set to expire at year's end. and we look at today's numbers now, with diane swonk, chief economist for mesirow financial, a financial services firm in chicago. and carl van horn, founding director of the heldrick center for workforce development at rutgers university. today, the center published its latest survey on how americans who lost jobs in the recession have been impacted. so, diane swonk, i'll start with you. we have the rate going down for good, and some bad reasons. start with the good news. where was the hiring coming from? >> well, what we did see is we did see a lot of hiring as you already mentioned in the retail and hospitality sectors. unfortunately, that meant the composition of hiring we saw pushed down average hourly wages because we didn't see hiring in the high-wage manufacturers, very much of it, and the construction sectors. also we continue to lose jocks in the public sector. it does look like we're starting to get new business formation from other indicators we're seeing and that household survey showing the unemployment rate. to do of that's good news. but you said there was good news and bad news. a lot of people gave up entirely and the percent and number of people unemployed more than six months remain unchanged. we have more than 40% of those unemployed still unemployed for more than six months. there's a real sort of-- there's real hard times out there for anyone unemployed for a very long time. it tend to be people who have been unemployed for a short time that get re-employed not those unemployed for six months who need it the most. >> brown: what do you make of the upward revisions? judgey does that keep happening? >> the initial payroll data, it's a survey established firm, and so it doesn't get all of the new business creation, and oftentimes it just doesn't capture the information when we're at a turning point so that might be encouraging we've seen consistently upward instead of double play ward revisions because it could be we're capturing more jobs now that are actually being created. that's the good news. and the key is catch-up to earlier positive activity related to things like japan's earthquake or a fundamental turn in the economy more sustainable going forward. >> brown: which sectors continue to lag? you talked about some of the ones getting ahead. where do you still see the problems? >> manufacturing activities is picking up, particularly in the auto sector although hiring has not picked up very much. it was almost flat. i think 2,000 jobs were created in the month of november that's despite a major rebound in manufacturing activity in the auto industry and one of the problems they're finding is not a shortage of engineers-- although that is one of the place where's there is a shortage-- but the shortage of skilled workers, machinists and engineers, and we're hoping some of those people who had been construction workers and maybe had some of these skills had somehow translate those into the places they're needed now in the economy. there hasn't been that apprentice ship kind of thing we see in europe to be able to fill those jobs and many manufacturers are complaining they can't find workers now. >> brown: carl van horn, one of the things you looked at was what happens to people when they do get rehired? tell us what you found. >> first of all, we've been interviewing unemployed workers who lost their jobs at the beginning of the recession off and on for the last two years now. and what we found was that only about 27% of them-- this is a national survey-- had recovered, had gotten a job, a full-time job when we interviewed them again in september of this year. and of those, about half of them took a paycut, at least of 10%, and some of them took asignificant paycut. another third of them told us they had to change their careers entirely in order to get another job. >> brown: so when they come back in and take a lower wage, that reflects very-- clearly, a very competitive atmosphere that they're trying to get into. >> yeah, there's a very large number of applicants for every job. there are some, like diane mentioned, that are highly skilled jobs that go unfilled, but by and large that's not case where we find people telling us they just can't find work, despite their best efforts to continue to look and try hard to find another job. i think the other point to make is that they told us only about one in-- 14% had actually gotten a skills training program to help them change years. so what that means is most of them either weren't able to find such a program or couldn't afford it. >> right. >> and, therefore, they're stuck in the same place they were before. >> brown: what kinds of things-- what's the attitudes they're telling buthat time spent looking for work? are they still out there fighting for work? i'm trying to fit this into the numbers we're energy of people just dropping out altogether. >> a small percentage drop out entirely. about 6% quit workforce, some taking early retirement if they were eligible, some just giving up. most stay in the labor market and we asked them about what they're doing to look for work and they're doing all the things we would expect them to do. they're searching the internet. they're contacting former employers and friends and so on. but they're unsuccessful. i mean, in terms of the unemployed, i think it's important to reinforce the point of those we first interviewed two years ago, who were still unemployed, 50%, therefore are, unemployed for more than two years. so they lost their unemployment insurance benefits if they had any. and so it's a very, very long struggle. and what we find is that they are changing their lifestyles entirely. they're not only giving up on things they'd like to have but they're giving up on things they need to have. they're selling possessions. they're borrowing money. they are forgoing visits to the the doctor and all the kinds of things that make life unpleasant in a continued state of unemployment. >> brown: diane swonk, you wanted to jump in there? >> yeah, i wanted to add that is really reflected in the poverty statistic as well. we have more than one in five children in this country now living below the poverty line which is already a pretty low threshold. almost a third of those children are in the state of florida alone where the construction bust was so horrendous, and you have a lot of them homeless. and that's a really tragic reality of today. it's how many people are not only doing that, but young people coming back either from college or they didn't have aa college degree, they're 25 years old, they're moving back in with their families and adding financial stress on to a family already stressed. you may have more than one person in a house who hot last a job for a long period of time and fewer, and fewer wage earners able to support that household. that's what we're seeing even on black friday, some of the surveys of the people standing in line, they were standing in line because they waited all year to buy the one thing they needed to replace during the black friday sales and they could only afford it during those sales. >> brown: carl van horn, key keep hearing today a sort of glass half full, half empty. what do you look at? what do you see? >> well, i think what our data show is really a moving picture of an evolving crisis. these are the folks that were at the forefront of the economic recession. they lost their jobs at that point. and as evidenced by our study, most of them have not recovered. one of the things we try to do is look at that and figure out what percentage of them are actually recovered, and we only found about 7% had fully recovered in the sense they had only taken a temporary cut in pay. they were back working again. we found another 30% who are what we call devastated. that is to say, they have a significant loss of incomes, changing their standard of living, and they really believe that it's a permanent change in their life, and as we said before, they're headed on their way, if they're not already, in poverty. they were drawing on food stamps and other social services that they've never used before. of so what it tells us is that's there's this huge problem-- again, millions of people who have been unemployed for a very long period of time, and the further along it goes from their last unemployment, the harder it is for them to get back into the labor market. >> brown: all right carl van horn and diane swonk, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> lehrer: still to come on the newshour tonight: a closer look at why businesses are not hiring; a conversation with former president bill clinton; and shields and brooks. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman. >> holman: wall street moved higher at first on the jobs report, but the gains evaporated as the day went on. in the end, the dow jones industrial average lost just more than half a point to close at 12,019. the nasdaq rose less than a point to close just under 2,627. still, the market had its best week in nearly three years. the dow, the nasdaq and the s&p 500 each gained more than 7%. german chancellor angela merkel warned today it could take years to fix europe's staggering debt problems. she spoke amid growing signs european leaders may fashion a more powerful political union. we have a report from faisal islam of independent television news. >> reporter: it's no longer just a currency, a note, or a coin. >> reporter: it starts here at the bundestag, where the german leader angela merkel vowed this morning to create a fiscal union, a sharing of sovereignty across europe over taxations, spending, and government bargaining. >> ( translated ): we have to overcome mistakes that were made when we first created the union and make it a real union. to achieve this, there is no other way but to alter european treaties or possibly to write new treaties. >> reporter: this announcement came just hours after a similar speech from french president sarkozy. so here is the grand bargain that's being negotiated across europe. already, euro friendly faces are now running all five problem nations-- portugal, ireland, spain, italy, and greece. all have changed governments this year, two with unelected technocratic prime ministers. in the future, the german chancellor sees the european court of justice in luxembourg as judge and jury, able to legally enforce requirements for e.u. nations to balance their budgets, essentially an end to their financial independence. but that might require a change in the e.u. treaty to be ratified by all member states, possibly those outside the euro, such as britain, too. the prime minister met president sarkozy in paris for lunch. but there was apparently little talk of using this moment to win back extra powers from brussels for britain. in the next seven days, we're going to see epic and historic changes to the way that europe relates to european countries, and so far, david cameron's playing along because of the economic crisis. that's pleased paris and berlin, but it may go down less well in his own party. >> in the short term the banning could step in and buy huge quantities of debt. they will only do this if and only if this new fiscal union can guarantee discipline and economic stability. >> holman: merkel is set to meet with french president sarkozy on monday to outline possible changes to the european union treaty. those proposals will be debated at a summit of e.u. leaders next friday. republican presidential candidate herman cain will announce the future of his campaign tomorrow. cain has been rocked by allegations of a long-time affair and charges of sexual harassment. he spoke at a rally this afternoon in south carolina. >> i am reassessing because of all of this media firestorm stuff. why? because my wife and family comes first. i gotta take that into consideration. tomorrow in atlanta, i will be making an announcement but nobody's going to get me to make that prematurely. that's all there is to that. >> holman: cain has denied all the allegations. he's said he will meet with his wife gloria this evening. in egypt, results trickled in today from this week's parliamentary elections, the first since president mubarak was ousted in february. officials said turnout was more than 60%, but many of the races were headed to runoffs. from all indications, the long- banned muslim brotherhood placed first, followed by an ultra-conservative islamist party. fresh violence raged across syria today. activists said at least nine people died and dozens were wounded. the worst of it was around a town near the border with lebanon. explosions and heavy gunfire there lasted for more than six hours. at the same time, members of the syrian uprising reported that, in november alone, at least 950 people were killed, the deadliest month yet. large sections of the american west were picking up today from a violent wind storm on thursday. hundreds of buildings were damaged, and several cities declared emergencies. on utah highways, 18-wheeler trucks were tossed like toys. debris flew at upward of 100 miles an hour in some places across southwest. surfers took advantage to ride virtually-unheard-of windblown waves on northern california's lake tahoe. and everywhere, large trees snapped and splintered... >> we couldn't even get out. we had to crawl through trees. we thought it was going to come through the house. >> holman: high winds are a late fall fixture for parts of california and the baja peninsula, but thursday's big blow was once-in-a-decade. a strong high pressure system collided with cold, low pressure, funneling winds down mountain canyons and slopes to the state's coastal plain. the result-- hurricane-force gusts that spread destruction across utah, wyoming, arizona, new mexico and colorado. overall, more than 300,000 homes and businesses lost power, including los angeles international airport, where all the lights went out briefly. scores of trees were downed all over the west onto power lines, cars and homes. >> we heard a crashing sound like an airplane hitting th house, and you can see the hole that the tree brought in. it shook the house like an earthquake. i actually woke up thinking it was an earthquake. >> holman: the damage had utility crews out in force today across the region. and fire crews still were busy, especially in california, battling at least a dozen wind- blown fires. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jim. >> lehrer: today's jobs report underscored again that hiring remains far short of what's needed. the newshour's economics correspondent, paul solman, has been asking employers why they are reluctant to bring on more employees. here is his report from tennessee, part of his reporting on "making sense of financial news." >> reporter: nashville, tennessee-- a red state's blue city with a better-than-average economy. a good spot, we thought, to ask employers, how come you're not hiring more people? >> we're at the end of the rope when it comes to wanting to hire people because we can't afford to hire anybody. it's costing us a fortune to stay... to try to stay in business. >> reporter: for 34 years, bobby joslin's been making signs, from paper to neon. he's become a nashville fixture. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: but joslin sign is struggling, because, says the fervent republican, of uncertainty about federal policy-- regulations, for instance. >> we're fighting mandates that just keep coming at us out of nowhere. >> reporter: mandates? you're a sign company! what kind of mandates are you facing? >> well, two years ago, three years ago, we had to have all our tow motor people certified to operate a tow motor. >> reporter: a what? >> a forklift. and that cost the company $3,600. now, were having to dispose of all our light bulbs. we're in the sign business, we create a lot of volume of fluorescent tubes. so we just got through spending $8,500 on a light bulb crusher. >> reporter: what new regs might the government impose, he wonders? >> for instance, the "obama- care," when we bring on a new employee, we don't know what that emp