Nov Payrolls gained 146k, 147k of which was in the private sector. Expectations were for 85k and 90k respectively. The two prior months were revised down by 49k mostly in the public sector. The main difference between today’s # and ADP was the viewpoint of each on the impact of Hurricane Sandy. The Labor Dept said the storm didn’t “substantively” affect the data whereas ADP Wed said it “wrecked havoc on the job market in Nov, slicing an estimated 86k jobs from payrolls.” The unemployment rate was 7.7% but for the wrong reasons as the Household survey saw a decline of 122k on top of a 350k drop in the size of the labor force. The U6 rate fell to 14.4% from 14.6%. Avg hourly earnings rose .2% m/o/m, in line with estimates but the y/o/y rise of 1.7% is not keeping up with CPI. Avg hours worked at 34.4 was in line and unch with Oct. Also of note, the participation rate fell to 63.6% from 63.8%. The avg duration of unemployment fell a touch to 40 weeks from 40.2. Retail saw a big jump in job gains of 53k and temp had its biggest job gain since June of 18k. Mfr’g shed 7k and construction lost 20k. Bottom line, its hard to believe that the awful Hurricane on the dense area of the tri state area didn’t have much of an impact on total hiring but most analysts thought it did and thus the bar was pretty low going into the report. The markets response higher is thus obvious. Today’s 146k print puts the ytd avg at 151k and the private sector gain of 147k compares with the ytd avg of 154k. Looking to the market action in the next 3 weeks with China stabilizing, Europe calm post Greece buyback (assuming no issues today) and a relief payroll #, the results of the fiscal negotiations remain center stage. The market will celebrate any deal by yr end and focus on the details in 2013 which I believe will be contractionary to growth.
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