Jobs added in U.S. triple projections

Companies in the United States added 189,000 jobs in November, more than triple the amount economists had forecast, a private report based on payroll data showed last week.
The increase followed a revised estimate of 119,000 new jobs in October, 13,000 more than calculated a month ago, ADP Employer Services said. The ADP report has shown average monthly job growth of 93,000 so far this year.
The figures spurred economists to lift their estimates for the government’s payroll report in two days. Federal Reserve officials, including Chairman Ben Bernanke, have flagged the importance of the Labor Department’s release for their Tuesday meeting to set interest rates, and the ADP data diminished traders’ expectations of a half-point reduction.
“If you look at the labor market, if you look at consumption, nothing is falling off a cliff in the way you generally see at the beginning of a recession,” said Robert Stein, an economist at First Trust Advisors in Lisle, Illinois, and former Treasury deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomic analysis. ”The ADP report greatly reduces prospects for a 50 basis point rate cut.”
ADP was forecast to report an increase of 50,000 jobs, according to the median estimate of 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates ranged from 10,000 to 100,000.
A separate report from the Labor Department showed worker productivity in the U.S. accelerated more than forecast in the third quarter, causing labor costs to drop by the most in four years. Productivity, a measure of employee efficiency, rose at an annual rate of 6.3 percent, the most since 2003, the department said. •
Read more about the ADP National Employment Report at www.PBN.com.