new jobs are being created but the pace which they are created is painfully slow, slowed down. the economy added 39,000 jobs in november. that falls way below the 150,000 jobs economists were expecting and it did help increase the unemployment rate. it went up from 9.6% to 9.8%. it held steady at 9.6 for the past three months. take a look at the employment situation for the past few years. these are the number of jobs gained or lost in a given month. you'll see after consistent losses all through 2008 and into 2009 we saw stronger gains at the first half of 2010 and now slower growth at the end of the year. christine romans who follows this closely joins me now. what do you think of this? >> the length we've been at 9.5%. it's longer above 9% employment than in the 1980s which is the worst period of unemployment on record. this is a difficult time.