America's unemployment rate dipped to 8.6% in November

2 December 2011 Last updated at 16:07 ET Help

America's unemployment rate dipped to 8.6% in November, a big drop compared to 9% in October.

Private sector companies added an extra 140,000 workers to payrolls last month. But a lot of those jobs were only temporary hires for the holiday season.

But even with these gains, the US is far from the levels of high employment seen before the 2008 recession.

Caroline Hepker reports.

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