The November jobs report is expected to show hiring rebounded last month after hurricanes and a strike by Boeing (BA) workers weighed heavily on the October report.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report, slated for release at 8:30 a.m. ET on Friday, is expected to show nonfarm payrolls rose by 215,000 in November while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, according to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
In October, the US economy added just 12,000 jobs amid various disruptions to economic activity while the unemployment rate stood at 4.1% for a second straight month.
Ahead of Friday’s report, Goldman Sachs economists told clients they’re anticipating a “post-hurricane rebound.”
“Payroll growth in states impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton decelerated by roughly 70k in October,” Goldman Sachs economists Ronnie Walker and Jessica Rindels wrote. “Data from Homebase suggest that the effects of the hurricanes had mostly reversed by early November, which we expect will boost November payroll growth by 50,000.”
The Goldman Sachs team estimated that another 37,500 payrolls will be added back due to the end of worker strikes, including one at Boeing.
Here are the key numbers Wall Street will be looking at on Friday, according to data from Bloomberg:
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Nonfarm payrolls: +215,000 vs. +12,000 previously
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Unemployment rate: 4.1% vs. 4.1% previously
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Average hourly earnings, month over month: +0.3% vs. +0.4% previously
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Average hourly earnings, year over year: +3.9% vs. +4% previously
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Average weekly hours worked: 34.3 vs. 34.3 previously
Recent data has shown the labor market slowing, but not rapidly deteriorating, from the monthly pace of job gains seen earlier this year.
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday showed there were 7.74 million jobs open at the end of October, an increase from the 7.37 million seen in September. Openings in September were the fewest since January 2021.
Meanwhile, the quits rate, a sign of confidence among workers, rose to 2.1% from 1.9% in September. This marked the first increase in the quits rate since May 2023.
On Wednesday, data from ADP showed 146,000 private payrolls were added in November, fewer than the 184,000 seen in October. ADP also released wage data that showed the median year-over-year pay increase for job switchers rose to 7.2% in November, up from 6.7% in October.
“Job changers are the most sensitive to real-time labor market conditions,” ADP chief economist Nela Richardson told Yahoo Finance. “So if they’re getting paid a little bit more in November than they did in October, that tells you that there’s a labor market out there that’s still a little tight.”
Speaking at the New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the “US economy is in very good shape.”
“The downside risks appear to be less in the labor market, growth is definitely stronger than we thought, and inflation has come in a little higher,” Powell said.
While Powell’s comments fall in line with the market’s projections for a slower pace of interest rate cuts in 2025, they did little to shake investor confidence that Federal Reserve will cut interest rates once more at its meeting on Dec. 18.
As of Thursday afternoon, markets were pricing in a roughly 70% chance the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point in December, per the CME FedWatch Tool.
Economists don’t think a report in line with consensus expectations would do much to change that thinking.
