Solid US Hiring Lowers Jobless Rate    12/09 07:49

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. employers added a healthy 199,000 jobs last month 
and the unemployment rate fell, fresh signs that the economy could achieve an 
elusive "soft landing," in which inflation would return to the Federal 
Reserve's 2% target without causing a steep recession.

   Friday's report from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate 
dropped from 3.9% to 3.7%, not far above a five-decade low of 3.4% in April. 
The jobless rate has now remained below 4% for nearly two years, the longest 
such streak since the late 1960s.

   Last month's job gain was inflated by the return of about 40,000 formerly 
striking auto workers and actors, who were not at work in October but were back 
on the job in November.

   The latest jobs report and other recent data portray an economy and a labor 
market that, while still sturdy, are downshifting back to pre-pandemic norms. 
Businesses are hiring but are less desperate to fill huge numbers of jobs. More 
Americans have come off the sidelines to look for work, and immigration has 
jumped this year.

   As a result, employers are finding it easier to hire, with fewer complaints 
of worker shortages and less pressure to aggressively raise pay, which can fuel 
inflation.

   "What we wanted was a strong but moderating labor market, and that's what we 
saw in the November report," said Robert Frick, an economist at the Navy 
Federal Credit Union.

   A cooling job market is also just what the Fed was hoping to achieve as it 
sought to slow the economy and inflation with its rapid interest rate hikes in 
the past year and a half. Hiring has averaged just over 200,000 a month in the 
past three months, down from an average of about 320,000 in the same period 
last year.

   And most of last month's job gains were concentrated in just a few sectors. 
The health care industry -- doctors' offices and hospitals -- added 93,000 jobs 
in November. Hotels and restaurants added 40,000, and governments 49,000, 
accounting for nearly all the job growth. By contrast, retailers, shipping and 
warehousing companies, and temporary help agencies all cut jobs.

   Still, last month's hiring gain raised the proportion of Americans who are 
employed to 60.5%, the highest level since the pandemic struck, though it 
remains below the pre-COVID level of 61.1%.

   In the meantime, wages are growing at a slower but still-healthy pace. In 
November, average hourly pay rose 4% from a year earlier, matching the previous 
month's figure, which was the smallest since June 2021. Still, average pay is 
now growing faster than inflation, which should support consumer spending.

   And layoffs remain low, according to government data, despite job cuts at 
such companies as Panera Bread, a restaurant chain, and Spotify, the music 
streaming platform, which cited higher interest rates as a reason it had to cut 
about 1,500 jobs globally.

   Becky Frankiewicz, president of the staffing giant Manpower Group North 
America, said more employers are moving workers they may not need in one part 
of the company to another division rather than laying them off. Many companies 
still recall the difficulty they had finding workers during the pandemic and 
want to hold onto staff.

   "Everything we see continues to point to a slow glide into a cooler labor 
market," she said.

   Aaron Seyedian, owner of a small cleaning company based in Takoma Park, 
Maryland, says his business is still growing and hiring. He has enough demand 
to add five workers to his 30-person staff.

   Seyedian's company, "Well-Paid Maids," has just raised its starting pay from 
$23 to $24 an hour. He said he hasn't had any trouble finding people to hire.

   "From my perspective," Seyedian said, "the economy is still strong, and 
people still want to spend money."

   For the Fed, Friday's jobs report won't likely alter the near-certainty that 
it will keep interest rates unchanged for the third straight time when it meets 
next week. The central bank has raised its key rate 11 times since March 2022, 
from near zero to roughly 5.4%. The result has been much more expensive 
mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and business borrowing.

   Most economists and Wall Street traders think the Fed's next move will be to 
cut rates, though the strength in Friday's jobs report could lead the central 
bank to keep rates at a peak for a longer period. Before the jobs report, Wall 
Street traders foresaw a 55% likelihood that the Fed would cut rates at its 
March meeting, according to the CME FedWatch, tool. Now, they don't expect the 
first cut until May.

   Guy Berger, former principal economist at the career website LinkedIn, said 
the job market's resilience means the Fed can keep rates high to fight 
inflation without worrying so much about triggering a recession.

   "If we're not cooling, what's the rush?" to cut rates, Berger said.

   Many of the most recent economic figures have pointed toward a potential 
soft landing. Companies are advertising fewer job openings, and Americans are 
switching jobs less often than they did a year ago, trends that typically slow 
wage growth and inflation pressures.

   Most economists expect growth to slow and inflation will continue to 
decline. The economy is expected to expand at just a 1.5% annual rate in the 
final three months of this year, down from a scorching 5.2% pace in the 
July-September quarter. Cooler growth should help bring down inflation while 
still supporting a modest pace of hiring.

   Inflation has tumbled from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to just 3.2% last 
month. And according to a different inflation measure that the Fed prefers, 
prices rose at just a 2.5% annual rate in the past six months -- not far above 
the central bank's 2% target.

   Christopher Waller, a key Fed official who typically favors higher rates, 
buoyed the markets' expectations last week for rate hikes when he suggested 
that if inflation kept falling, the Fed could cut rates as early as spring.

   Fed Chair Jerome Powell, though, pushed back against such speculation last 
Friday, when he said it was "premature to conclude" that the Fed has raised its 
benchmark rate high enough to quell inflation. And it was too soon, he added, 
to "speculate" about when the Fed might cut rates.

   But Powell also said interest rates are "well into" restrictive territory, 
meaning that they're clearly constraining growth. Many analysts took that 
remark as a signal that the Fed is done raising rates.