The pandemic-ravaged U.S. labor market continues to recover but it's losing momentum, as COVID-19 rages across the country and new cases spike in recent weeks.

U.S. employers added 245,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate edged down to 6.7 percent amid a slowing labor market recovery, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The pace of improvement in the labor market has "moderated" in recent months," according to the report.

In comparison, the growth in total nonfarm payroll employment for September was revised up by 39,000 to 711,000, and the change for October was revised down by 28,000 to 610,000, the report showed.

"Strains of the latest COVID surge are starting to take a toll on the labor market," Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities, wrote in an analysis.

Noting that the headline was held down by the layoffs of 93,000 temporary Census workers, House said the slowdown can be traced entirely to the private sector.

According to a report released by payroll data company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) on Wednesday, private companies in the United States added 307,000 jobs in November, the slowest private payroll growth since July.

In October, the private sector added an upwardly revised 404,000 jobs, and in September, the private sector gained 754,000 jobs, the ADP report showed.

Recovery in the labor market is slowing down as COVID-19 cases surge in recent weeks.

The country set new world records of single-day case count, as 196,227 new cases were reported on Wednesday and hospitalizations exceeded 100,000 for the first time, according to data updated on Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The total number of confirmed cases surpassed 14.19 million as of Friday noon, with death toll of over 276,000, the Johns Hopkins University tally showed.

In response to the spikes in infections, state and local officials across the country have recently reinstated restrictive measures to curb the spread of the virus, casting shadow over economic recovery.

Amid widespread shutdowns in March and April, 22 million people lost their jobs. The number of unemployed persons, at 10.7 million, continued to trend down in November but remains 4.9 million higher than in February, the report showed.

The unemployment rate is down by 8 percentage points from its recent high in April but is 3.2 percentage points higher than the pre-pandemic level in February, the department said in its monthly employment report.

"Although we welcome this progress, we will not lose sight of the millions of Americans who remain out of work," Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said at a hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee earlier this week, urging Congress to roll out more relief for those in need.

House noted that the unemployment report's survey week spanned Nov. 8-14, before many of the latest COVID-19 restrictions and more voluntary efforts to stay at home.

"A further moderation in hiring is therefore likely in December, with real potential for payrolls to decline outright next month," House added. Enditem