WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The November jobs report’s tally of 155,000 new payroll slots Friday was positive news on balance, with 27,000 new manufacturing jobs, despite coming in below expectations.
With its moderate but overall broad-based improvement, the latest jobs report seemed to have little scenario-changing import for monetary policy.
Wage growth stayed above an annual 3% for the second month, at 3.1%, perhaps helped by increases in the minimum wage by Amazon and other firms.
The month dropped the monthly average for the past year to 204,000 from 209,000, following an October that had a revised 237,000 payroll total and a September with 119,000. The two prior months of revisions subtracted a net 12,000. For the past three months’ reports, the monthly average payrolls gain has been 170,000.
Outright negatives were virtually absent outside of a small increase in the most comprehensive measure of unemployment, the “U-6” alternative that registered the month’s uptick in those only marginally attached to the work force – available but not actively looking for work. The increase in that rate to 7.6% from October’s 7.4% broke a string of improvements that had been in line with the main unemployment rate that stayed at 3.7% for the third time.
The overall average workweek got smaller by a tenth of an hour but manufacturing hours, including overtime, stayed steady.
The “job leavers” category, a measure of the confidence that exists that a new job is available, was also below par at 704,000, the least in several months.
The manufacturing sector’s 27,000 increase in payrolls was part of the 288,000 jobs created there so far in 2018.
Those on temporary layoffs during November, 811,000, was the second lowest total in six months, showing no especially adverse impact from weather and West Coast fires.
Other categories of jobs showed health care employment up 32,000, transportation and warehousing gaining 25,000 and professional and business services remaining strong with a 32,000 increase.
Retail was softer, though up 18,000, being held back by declines in clothing, sports equipment and electronics stores.
Metals mining showed a drop and construction had only a minimal increase, 5,000.
The employment measure within the ISM services business activity momentum indicator earlier in the week has shown a minor falloff of 1.3 points within an otherwise strong report.
The ADP/Moody’s Analytics forecast Thursday had a somewhat below-trend result of 179.000 private payrolls. Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi noted the record unfilled positions and said job growth “had likely peaked” in a job market so tight that hiring is getting more difficult.
Some other analysts doubted that scenario, saying the observation was premature if not wrong since more than 20% of the unemployed have been out of a job for six months or longer.
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Correction: A previous version’s fourth paragraph erroneously averaged monthly payrolls changes at 215,000 in the past year including November, corrected to be 204,000.