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Jobseekers stream into workforce for the holidays

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Gearing up for the holidays, employers boosted hiring in November, and hundreds of thousands of jobseekers streamed into the market, putting the unemployment rate at 4.5 percent.

The Labor Department’s mostly positive report, released Friday, showed a national job climate that remains quite sturdy despite the troubled housing and automotive industries.

Employers added 132,000 jobs to their payrolls, an improvement from the 79,000 generated in October.

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The House approved oil and gas drilling Friday in a vast area of the Gulf of Mexico south of Florida’s Panhandle and agreed to steer hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty payments to Gulf states to restore coastal wetlands and repair hurricane damage.

The drilling provision was attached to a package of popular tax breaks that were approved by vote of 367-45 as lawmakers scrambled to adjourn and end of the 109th Congress. The House bill opens to energy companies 8.3 million acres in the east-central Gulf that is currently off-limits to drilling.

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