A postal worker wearing a Santa hat, sorts through mail and packages during a media tour hosted by the US Postal Service at the Los Angeles Processing and Distribution Center, the largest in the country, equivalent to 29 football fields, on November 30, 2023.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images
Job creation showed little signs of a let-up in November, as payrolls grew even faster than expected and the unemployment rate fell despite signs of a weakening economy.
Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 199,000 for the month, slightly better than the 190,000 Dow Jones estimate and ahead of the October gain of 150,000, the Labor Department reported Friday.
The unemployment rate declined to 3.7%, compared to the forecast for 3.9%, as the labor force participation rate edged higher to 62.8%. A more encompassing unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons fell to 7%, a decline of 0.2 percentage point.
The department’s survey of households, used to calculate the unemployment rate, showed much more robust job growth of 747,000 and an addition of 532,000 workers to the labor force.
Average hourly earnings, a key inflation indicator, increased by 0.4% for the month and 4% from a year ago. The monthly increase was slightly ahead of the 0.3% estimate, but the yearly rate was in line.
Markets showed mixed reaction to the report, with stock market futures modestly negative while Treasury yields surged.
“What we wanted was a strong but moderating labor market, and that’s what we saw in the November report,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union, noting “healthy job growth, lower unemployment, and decent wage increases. All this points to the labor market reaching a natural equilibrium around 150,000 jobs next year, which is plenty to continue the expansion, and not enough to trigger a Fed rate hike.”
Health care was the biggest growth industry, adding 77,000. Other big gainers…
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