A few said a December rate increase was still not a sure thing, because there were a few signs of weakness in the October data. In addition, average hourly earnings rose a respectable 9 cents. The payrolls jump followed modest gains in August and September.
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The Fed hasn’t lifted interest rates since 2006, but dovish members see low inflation as sufficient reasoning to hold-off until 2016.
“The employment report had everything you could have asked for”.
A strong hiring surge in October boosted the chances of the Federal Reserve raising benchmark interest rates in December for the first time since 2006.
“Metals have breached their respective key support levels on dollar hitting multi-month high”. The two-year note reached as high as 0.95%.
US stocks closed mildly lower after wavering between small gains and losses Thursday, as investors digested mixed economic data ahead of the jobs report. Futures markets shifted to show a 70 percent probability of a December rate hike, up from 58 percent before the report.
“The pace of jobs growth has slowed in recent months but Janet Yellen’s comments… suggest that she has seen the numbers and that they will not be an impediment to a December rate hike”, said Neil MacKinnon, economist at VTB Capital financial group.
A Reuters survey of banks that deal directly with the Fed showed 15 of the 17 so-called primary dealers expect monetary policy tightening next month. That compared with only 12 dealers in September.
“It was pretty strong”, said Steve Kyle, an economics professor at Cornell University. The jobless rate peaked at 10 percent in 2009 and is now closing in on what many economists believe is its lowest sustainable level.
124-c-25-(Jerry Bodlander, AP correspondent)-“meet next month”-AP correspondent Jerry Bodlander reports the October jobs report was very strong”. That 1.5 percent gain translates into annualized wage growth of 18 percent.
“In terms of sectors, what stood out was construction (+ 31,000) in a testament to the improvement in both the residential and commercial segments, and retail (+44,000, the best tally since November 2014) as merchants seem to be taking on a bullish assessment towards the upcoming holiday shopping season”. But the size of the predicted interest rate increase remains modest.
Locally, the transportation and warehousing sector was up by 2.6 percent over the year in September while employment in the local wholesale trade industry rose by 3.2 percent over the year.
Similarly, a Labor Department measure of underemployment, sometimes called the “real” unemployment rate, fell to 9.8 percent in October. The economy typically needs only about 100,000 jobs a month to keep the unemployment rate from rising.
The dollar gained more than one-and-a-half cents on sterling in the wake of the jobs report’s release. That sector added 78,000 positions, the most in almost a year.
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According to Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the Obama administration has stressed the monthly employment and unemployment figures “can be volatile”, and payroll employment estimates could be subjected to “substantial” revision.
