The jobs report is widely viewed as the most significant monthly benchmark of the US economy, and earlier this week Fed Chair Janet Yellen said she still wanted to see more data before making a decision about a potential rate hike at the central bank’s meeting this month.
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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. September was revised up by 12,000 to 145,000 and October’s strong report was boosted from 271,000 to 298,000.
The economy added 211,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Also, the rise in wages appears slanted toward management: Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees increased at an annualized rate of 1.9 percent in the three months through November, less than the 2.4 percent gain for all employees.
Average hourly wages, up 2.3 percent year-on-year in Friday’s Labor Department report, supported Yellen’s argument that wage gains were accelerating after a long period of stagnation.
The clear message from the labour market to the Fed is: “‘Just do it!'” said Harm Bandholz, chief USA economist at UniCredit Research in NY.
Stunning US jobs growth figures have opened the door for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates for the first time since the financial crisis. Manufacturing has been crippled by a strong dollar, efforts by businesses to reduce bloated inventory and spending cuts by energy companies scaling back well drilling and exploration in response to sharply lower oil prices.
Retail stocks were mostly positive on the stock market today. Economists surveyed by CNNMoney predicted there would be 192,000 jobs added. The labor-force participation rose to 62.5% last month, from 62.4% in October.
The sizable gain in construction jobs last month, even as the Fed is preparing to raise rates, suggests that few expect higher borrowing costs to derail home building or sales. In this regard, the job market has met the Fed’s standard to begin monetary policy tightening, analysts say. Most economists have forecast that it will grow at a still relatively subpar 2.5 percent this year, only slightly above its average pace since the recession officially ended in mid-2009.
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The number of people employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 319,000, to 6.1 millio, in November, after declines in September and October.
