At the beginning of every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases its Employment Situation or Jobs Report, The Establishment Survey, and the Household Survey. The Establishment Survey is where the headline job creation number comes from and the Household Survey is where the unemployment rate comes from.
The Establishment Survey showed that there were 199,000 jobs created in the month of November. This number came in a little bit stronger than the 190,000 that was expected by analysts. The prior months’ data reports were as follows, September was revised lower by 35,000 from 297,000 to 262,000, while October remained at 150,000. The downward revision appeared to have tempered the headline’s newest number a bit. Also, a large chuck, about 47,000 of the job growth came from returning strike workers within the film and auto industries.
Wage-pressured inflation in an important portion of this report is always looked at closely. In November, average hourly earnings rose 0.4%, which was 0.1% hotter than estimates showed. Year-over-year, average hourly earnings remained at 4%. The 4% year-over-year reading was in line with estimates and showed that wage-pressured inflation continued to moderate, as this figure was at 5% this time last year.
Average weekly hours worked, which some say is a better read on wage-pressured inflation, rose from 34.3 to 34.4. This could have been caused by seasonal workers having more hours for the holiday. Average weekly earnings rose 0.6% and are now up 3.7% year over year, which was up from 3.2% in the previous report.
The Household Survey has its job creation component and interestingly showed a whopping 747,000 job creations. The labor force increased by 532,000, and the unemployment rate decreased from 3.9% to 3.7%.
This report was not what many analysts and market experts were expecting, but in the end, the trend in job growth is still clearly lower. It is lower especially when considering the weak ADP Jobs Report showing only 103,000 job creations, the drop in job openings via the JOLTS report, those that said “it’s harder to find a job” rising to the highest level since 2021, and also job listings continuing to drop according to ZipRecruiter.
Sources :
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm
By: Jon Iacono