Labor officials also said that after revising data for October and September, they learned that 35,000 new jobs were left unreported.
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October is now the best month of 2015 for USA job creation as its total was revised up to 298,000 from 271,000. That would lower the year-on-year reading to 2.3 percent from 2.5 percent.
The latest jobs report is being closely watched as the last major data release before the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on December 15-16.
This morning’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the economy added 211,000 jobs in November-a decent amount, but lower than October’s more solid report, which was revised substantially upward.
Over the past three months, the USA has generated a healthy average of 218,000 jobs.
There’s even less doubt now that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates later this month. This should put to bed any doubts about whether the Fed will announce a rate increase later this month. The unemployment rate was in line with expectations.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen made clear this week she believes that will slowly dry up as the economy continues to grow, and was no barrier to a rate increase. Construction companies added 46,000 jobs, the most in two years.
In addition, restaurants added 31,500 positions, retailers almost 31,000.
Average hourly earnings, which have risen 2.3 percent over the past 12 months, rose in November to $25.25, up $0.04 from the previous month and $0.57 higher than in the 11th month of a year ago. “Since reaching an employment peak in December 2014, the industry has lost 124,000 jobs”, according to the BLS report.
The U.S. economy “is strong enough to withstand an initial hike in interest rates from what were seen as emergency record low levels”, said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.
It’s expected the Fed will boost rates slightly later this month and follow up with at least a few more hikes throughout 2016.
Analysts said it was near certain that the Fed, after keeping policy on hold for months awaiting more evidence of economic strength, would undertake its first rate increase in more than nine years at its upcoming meeting.
Progress in the labor market has played a large role in building the Fed’s confidence that the economy can withstand higher interest rates.
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“There is no doubt that if we had to intensify the use of our instruments to ensure that we achieve our price stability mandate, we would”, he said in a speech at the Economic Club of NY.
