Manufacturing jobs increased in Nov.

Manufacturing jobs increased in Nov.

WASHINGTON

The Department of Labor reported that America’s manufacturing sector gained 28,000 jobs in November. Alliance for American Manufacturing reported that 257,000 jobs have created since President Barack Obama started his second term.

Millennial jobless

WASHINGTON

Generation Opportunity, a national youth-advocacy organization, announced its Millennial Jobs Report for November 2014.

The effective unemployment rate for 18-to-29-year-olds, which adjusts for labor-force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 14.5 percent.

The declining labor-force participation rate has created an additional 1.871 million young adults who are not counted as unemployed by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.

Trade deficit falls

WASHINGTON

The U.S. trade deficit fell slightly in October as exports rebounded while oil imports dipped to the lowest level in five years.

The deficit edged down 0.4 percent to $43.4 billion, a drop from a revised $43.6 billion in September, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

Exports climbed 1.2 percent to $197.5 billion, recovering after a September dip. Imports were up as well, rising 0.9 percent to $241 billion, but that increase was tempered by a 0.6 percent fall in imports of petroleum, which dropped to the lowest level since November 2009. The average price of a barrel of oil dipped to $88.47, the lowest point since February 2011.

GM shuts Opel plant

BERLIN

The last vehicle has rolled off Opel’s production line at its flagship factory in Bochum, which General Motors is shuttering as it restructures its loss-making European subsidiary.

The dpa news agency reported Friday that with the production of the last Opel Zafira compact van, the factory, which employed 22,000 in its heyday, is closing after 52 years. About 300 of the plant’s 3,000 workers are expected to remain employed at the facility in a parts operation, but the others face an uncertain future.

Vindicator staff/wire reports