With a number that many warned would be impacted by not one by two hurricanes and as such the forecast range was extremely wide, from 105K to 253K, moments ago the BLS reported that indeed consensus was way off when it announced that in October payrolls soared by 250K, just shy of the highest Wall Street estimate, and more than double last month’s downward revised 118K (down from 134K).
And while the BLS reported that a whopping 198K workers were unable to work due to bad weather, what is curious about the number is that according to the BLS, “Hurricane Michael had no discernible effect on the national employment and unemployment estimates for October, and response rates for the two surveys were within normal ranges” indicating that the US economy, all else equal, is back to overheating, and the Fed may once again be well behind the curve.
The unemployment rate in October remained unchanged at 3.7%, as the number of employed workers soared by 600K to 156.562MM, while the number unemployed rose modestly to 6.075MM from 5.964M.
But the most important part of today’s report is that the increase in average hourly earnings jumped by 3.1%, in line with expectations and up from 2.8% in September. As we previewed overnight, this was the highest print since April 2009.
While much of this jump is due to calendar and base effects, the Fed will certainly pay attention to what it increasingly sees as an overheating economy. As a result, expect odds of more rate hikes in 2019 to jump accordingly.
via RSS https://ift.tt/2yMROLP Tyler Durden