- Employment Change November: +21.0K vs. expected 10.0K, prior 1.1K

- Unemployment Rate November: 5.8% vs. expected 5.8%, prior 5.7%
- Full Time Employment Change November: +15.5k vs. prior was -27.9K
- Part Time Employment Change November: +5.5k vs. prior was 28.9K
- Participation Rate November 64.8% vs. expected 64.8%, prior was 64.8%
- Better results for this November data should improve the sentiment out there somewhat. No doubt we’ll get the ‘better results but…’ soon, but this headline data is a relief.
- The employment gain is double what was expected.
- AUD traded higher immediately but ran into sellers fading the bounce – hedge fund sellers noted
More:
- TD Securities’ Annette Beacher noted the jobless rate would actually be 6.1 per cent now if the participation rate hadn’t shrunk “dramatically” earlier this year
- A negative in the data was the fall in average monthly hours worked; they dropped by 11.7 million hours to 1,634 million hours – the largest monthly fall since October 2012.
- Given that employment is a lagging indicator, the pick up seen in jobs may show the economy strengthening in the later part of the year – many economists caution, though, that the ‘noise’ in inherent in the labout data could mean this pick up is just a blip higher in a worsening trend.