November’s jobs report, as expected, showed a slight pickup in hiring, but the suprising positive —a lower unemployment rate—could be masking a troubling trend.
Job creation in November totaled 120,000, with 140,000 coming from the private sector, slightly lower than expected. But the big surprise was the four-tenths of a point decline in the unemployment rate to a 2-1/2 year low of 8.6 percent.
“The market focuses on headlines, and if you include the prior two months being revised up, and you think about the three months together, there was more employment than expected,” said Peter Boockvar, market strategist at Miller Tabak.
But “underneath the hood, it’s still sluggish job growth,” he added. “We’re only averaging 132,000 jobs this year and seeing the biggest drop in the labor force since January, and the participation rate at near record lows.”
Economists had expected 125,000 jobs in total, and forecast that the private sector added a total 150,000 jobs in November, offset by layoffs in the public sector. The unemployment rate was expected to hold steady at 9
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