The top-line numbers of the jobs report released Tuesday are mixed. The 64,000 jobs added in November beat the 40,000 expected, but they came on the heels of a net loss of 105,000 jobs in October, which were due to scheduled buyouts of 162,000 federal government workers that month. The unemployment rate also inched up to 4.6% last month, demonstrating that this is not a completely healthy economy.

Beneath the top-line numbers, however, is a more chaotic picture of short-term pain, but perhaps long-term gain. After a decade of growth, both the federal and the foreign-born workforces are shrinking. This is not a bug but a feature of President Donald Trump’s policies. So is the fact that the private sector and native-born workforce are thriving. 

More than 270,000 jobs have been shed by the federal government since January, leading to a workforce that is now smaller than it has been since 2014. We want the federal........

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