Employment Situation
Today’s big news was the release of two major economic reports. October’s Employment report at 8:30 AM ET showed the employment sector added far fewer jobs to the economy than was expected. Only 12,000 payrolls were added when forecasts were in the neighborhood of 115,000. The unemployment rate held at September’s 4.1%, as was expected. The bad news came in the 0.4% rise in average earnings that raises wage inflation concerns. Analysts were expecting to see a 0.3% increase. Earnings were up 4.0% on an annual basis to match predictions.