US unemployment rate fell in November to 10% from 10.2% in October, Labor Department figures show. Employers in November cut the lowest number of jobs since the recession began in December 2007.

In all, 11,000 jobs went over the month. That was far fewer than the 130,000 expected by most analysts. President Barack Obama said the figures were “good news”, but warned that there were “more bumps in the road to economic recovery”.

“There is a lot more to do before we can celebrate… good trends don’t pay the rent,” he said.

For an economy the size of the US, the change was so small that the Labor Department described employment as “essentially unchanged”.

In further good news for the US economy, factory orders rose by 0.6% in October, Commerce Department figures showed. Analysts had expected orders to remain unchanged.