US payrolls up, jobless rate at 9-year low

The Labor Department’s November jobs report provides a last key bit of economic data for the Federal Reserve before a policy meeting on December 13 and December 14 that is widely expected to see the second US interest rate increase in a decade.

Many of these trends — particularly the drop in the proportion of adults with jobs — emerged years before Obama took office.

The report Friday by the Labor Department – marking the 74th straight month of job creation – was generally in line with Wall Street expectations and left most economists convinced the Federal Reserve will lift rates on December 14 after its two-day meeting.

President Obama is giving President-elect Trump a welcome gift: A pretty good economy.

The latest picture of the U.S. economy’s health comes President-elect Donald Trump touts his efforts to prevent job losses in the manufacturing sector by striking deals to reduce the off-shoring of jobs and warning companies considering relocating overseas of “consequences”.

“This should prove temporary, as more reliable wage measures have drifted higher in response to growing worker shortages”, said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

“This positive jobs report is another indication that the United States economy continues to pick up stream”, said Citizens Bank managing director and head of global markets, Tony Bedikian.

The latest numbers show President-elect Donald Trump will inherit “a fairly robust economy with the lowest jobless rate in almost a decade, record home and stock prices and a healthy growth rate”, reads the POLITICO story.

Still, the monthly increases are more than enough to absorb new entrants into the labour market.

The Fed has been preparing the markets for a rate hike in the backdrop of strong economic data, including gains in consumer spending, inflation and manufacturing.

While the Dow dipped 21.51 points or 0.1 percent to 19,170.42 after ending the previous session at a record closing high, the Nasdaq edged up 4.55 points or 0.1 percent to 5,255.65 and the S&P 500 crept up 0.87 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 2,191.95. Solid consumer spending helped propel growth to a 3.2 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the best showing in two years. A rebound in retail sector employment is expected after October’s surprise decline. “Today, you’re older, and you’re working harder”, said President-Elect, Donald Trump.

“There’s no near-term threats”.

“Our employment or unemployment rates are directly impacted by what’s happening in the economy at large”, said Lewis.

Eurozone producer prices rose for the second straight month in October, and at a faster-than-expected pace, figures from Eurostat showed Friday.

For a year now, Fed officials have said they expect job growth to slow as the economy nears full employment. The rise in employment involved gains across various sectors of the economy: construction added nearly 20,000 jobs, health care or social assistance jobs increased by 35,000, and another 63,000 professional jobs were created.

Businesses added 156,000 jobs, led by professional and business services.

The November jobs report was also one of the final snapshots of the economy under Obama’s administration.

Those gains were partially offset by continued weakness in manufacturing.

Job gains last month were broad, though manufacturing shed another 4,000 jobs.

Nonfarm payrolls probably increased by 175,000 jobs last month after rising by 161,000 in October, according to a Reuters survey of economists.

Miller touted the announcement this week that Carrier was keeping 1,100 manufacturing jobs in IN instead of moving them to Mexico, a decision made after personal appeals from Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who as the still-serving in governor provided $7 million worth of incentives. That would be slightly better than the initial estimate for October’s job gains of 161,000. He also predicted “at least two more” interest rate increases next year.