Payroll employment increases by 228,000 in November; unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1%

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20. Different surveys

The 228k jobs is from the Establishment Survey.

The unemployment rate, the number of employed and unemployed, labor participation rate and civilian labor force and civilian non-institutional population and more is from the Household Survey.

The number of employed (Household Survey) went up by only 57,000 -- yes, way different than the 228,000 in the Establishment Survey. Monthly changes in the Household Survey are extremely volatile. It is common for the two surveys to be radically different in month-to-month changes, although over time they average out to be about the same (well, currently the Employed is 153,918,000 which is 4.5% higher than the 147,241,000 establishment survey number of employees)

The number of unemployed went up by 90,000.

The civilian labor force = employed + unemployed. It went up by 57,000 + 90,000 = 147,000. Well, they say the civilian labor force went up by 148,000 -- figures don't add up exactly due to rounding.

The unemployment rate = unemployed / civilian labor force.

Table A has some of the key numbers in the Household Survey. Table B has some of the key numbers in the Establishment Survey.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf