Meanwhile, the labor market has moderated without cratering. Overall job growth has slowed from an average of 240,000 new jobs each month to 199,000 in November, while the unemployment rate that month stood at 3.7 percent. In fact, the unemployment rate has stayed below 4 percent for two years, which was last achieved in the 1960s. As of Thursday, about 212,000 Americans were filing new unemployment claims each week, a widely followed proxy for layoffs that remains close to historic lows.