Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 108,000 in December, and the unemployment rate, at 4.9 percent, was little changed. In November, payroll employment rose by 305,000, and October employment was about unchanged (+25,000), as revised. Over the year, payroll employment increased by 2.0 million. Over the month, employment increased in manufacturing, food services, professional and business services, and health care. Construction employment was little changed in December.

With today's release, we have the third month of data derived from a special series of questions that were included in the household survey to identify and solicit information from survey respondents who had evacuated from their homes due to Hurricane Katrina. It is important to note that the estimates do not account for all evacuees. We do not gather information on those evacuees who remain outside the scope of the survey, such as those currently living in hotels or shelters.

The December data indicate that there were about 1.1 million persons age 16 and over who evacuated from their August residence due to Hurricane Katrina. By December, about 600,000 persons, or a little more than half, had returned to the home from which they had evacuated; the remainder had not returned.

Of the estimated 1.1 million evacuees identified in December, 58.2 percent were in the labor force, and their unemployment rate was 12.4 percent. Those evacuees who returned home had a lower unemployment rate in December (5.6 percent) than those evacuees who had not returned to the residence they occupied in August (20.7 percent). The proportion of evacuees participating in the labor force in December was similar for both groups--58.4 percent for those who had returned to their homes, and 58.0 percent for those who had not returned.