The Labor Department on Friday will release its monthly jobs report and should reveal that the economy added only 120,000 nonfarm payrolls in November, up from a less-than-stellar 80,000 in October, forecasts Peter Morici, a University of Maryland economist.

Such a gain will leave the headline unemployment rate unchanged at 9.0 percent, well above pre-recession levels of below 5 percent as companies aren't hiring, job searchers have stopped sending out resumes and more displaced professionals report themselves as "self-employed," meaning they work a few hours a week from home, Morici writes in a CNBC column.

"Even before escalating troubles in Europe and China are considered, the economic outlook is mediocre, with GDP growth expected at about 2 percent — hardly enough jobs to absorb adult population growth," Morici writes.

The government recently revised downwards its third-quarter gross domestic product rate to 2 percent from 2.5 percent.

Leadership in Washington could do more to remedy the problem.

"Without more assertive efforts to address America’s structural problems — huge trade deficits with China and on oil, and ineffective and expensive regulations in banking and health care, America is headed for a protracted period of high youth unemployment and permanent displacement of many older workers," Morici writes.

Still, some jobs figures are surprising on the upside, even if just a little.

The ADP National Employment Report shows private employers added 206,000 jobs in November, surpassing economists' expectations for a gain of 130,000 jobs, Reuters reports.

"So far in the current U.S. economic expansion, the only period of relatively healthy job creation lasted for a few months from late last year to this spring," Ryan Wang, U.S. economist at HSBC Securities USA, writes in a note, Reuters adds.

"Today's job gain of 206,000 in November raises the possibility that we may be on the cusp of a similar period of job creation."