The unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent as the US economy added 120,000 jobs in November, according to the latest numbers released by the Department of Labor.  With 50,000 jobs added, the retail trade sector helped push job growth, The professional and business services, health care and leisure and hospitality sectors all had job growth during November.  With 5,000 US Postal Service workers losing their jobs in November, government employment continued to decline.  Here's a look at the unemployment trends from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Here are some of the key data from other areas we like to track in the monthly jobs report:

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) dropped by 378,000 over the month to 8.5 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full- time job.

In November, 2.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, about the same as a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in November, a decrease of 186,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.5 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in November had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

Read the full report from the BLS here.