November Employment Expected To Increase By 600K

The November US employment report will be released on the first Friday of December. At the moment, analysts at Wells Fargo expect an increase in jobs of around 600.000.

Total nonfarm payrolls increased by 531K during October, a gain that was well ahead of expectations. The net revisions to the previous two months were also positive and added another 235K to job growth in August and September.

Stronger job growth recently is evidence that some of the headwinds holding back employment growth, namely the Delta variant of COVID and labour shortages, are beginning to die down and higher wages may be helping in this regard. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% during the month, and earnings are now up 4.9% over the past year.

Labour availability is expected to continue to be a constraint on hiring in the coming months. That noted, workers do appear to be slowly reentering the labor force.

More discernable improvement should come next spring when COVID risks are lower and childcare issues are better resolved.

The growing distance between fiscal support as well as inflation chipping away at individuals’ spending power should provide the financial imperative to return to work.

These factors should help hiring continue at a robust pace and keep the level of employment on track to recover around the end next year.

In terms of the November employment report, we look for a 600K gain, which as of this writing, is above consensus expectations.