November job losses fewest since start of the recession. Unemployment rate decline is biggest in more than three years.

The long-suffering U.S. jobs market improved significantly in November, as employers trimmed the fewest jobs of any month since the start of the recession, and the unemployment rate posted the biggest one-month decline in more than three years.

U.S. payrolls slipped 11,000 jobs in the month, far below any of the job losses posted over the last 23 months. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of 125,000 jobs in November.

The October and September job loss estimates were also revised sharply lower, trimming previous job loss estimates by 159,000 between them.

The new reading put October job losses at 111,000 jobs, and September's loss estimate was cut to 139,000. Each of those new estimates would have been the smallest declines in more than a year.

The unemployment rate improved to 10% in the month. Economists had forecast it would remain at the 10.2% level reached in October, which had been a 26-year high. The unemployment rate had risen in 12 of the previous 13 months before November.

Still, the number of jobs lost -- even with the lower revisions -- since the start of 2008 is 7.2 million. And that only captures the net loss of jobs, and doesn't give a full picture of the large pool of those without work or income.

The report showed 15.4 million Americans are now unemployed and seeking work, although that's down 325,000 from the October reading. Another 6 million want jobs but are not counted as part of the labor force because they have stopped looking.

Add to that group the 9.2 million who have only found part-time work when they want full-time jobs or have had their hours cut as a result of the downturn, and that brings to 30.6 million Americans who are not able to find the full-time job they want or need.

The long-term unemployment problem was worse in November than at any time in the 61 years those records have been kept. A record 5.9 million people have been out of work for more than 6 months, as the average length of time those with work have been without a job rose to 28.5 weeks.

The report came the day after the Obama administration held a jobs summit at the White House, during which business leaders, economists and policymakers discussed what could be done to end the job losses.