US employers added 227,000 jobs in November, a massive rebound from last month when jobs got crushed by two devastating hurricanes and a major strike by Boeing employees, according to government data.
Economists polled by FactSet had expected payrolls to expand by around 200,000, a drop from September’s revised 223,000 but far above last month’s 36,000 — a figure that was upwardly revised on Friday from 12,000.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1% a month earlier and the number of unemployed was little changed at 7.1 million, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Those numbers are up compared to this time last year, when the jobless rate was 3.8% and the number of unemployed people was 6.4 million.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at all-time highs on Friday, while the Dow closed down 0.3%.
As inflation has shown signs of cooling, the Federal Reserve has turned its attention to jobs data — hopeful for a low unemployment rate — ahead of its meeting on Dec. 17-18 as it weighs whether to issue more rate cuts.
Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, called the November data a “that’s more like it” jobs report.
“Averaging 173k jobs added over the previous three months, the U.S. economy has demonstrated remarkable resilience over the past couple of years resisting fears of an imminent recession,” Hamrick said in a statement.
Odds of a quarter-point cut at the Fed’s December meeting shot up to 90% after the jobs report was released, compared to 68% earlier this morning, according to CME FedWatch.
“We see a healthy, although weakening, job market,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management, said in a statement. “Despite the strong headline number this morning, the Fed is likely to note the overall slowing in the job market and cut rates by 25 bps in 2 weeks, unless the next CPI report is white hot.”
The number of people jobless for 27 weeks or more was little changed at 1.7 million, though this measure is up from 1.2 million this time last year.
Average hourly earnings for employees on nonfarm payrolls grew 0.4% to $35.61 an hour. Hourly earnings have risen 4% over the past 12 months.
The change in total nonfarm employment for October was revised from 12,000 new jobs to 36,000.
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