Jobless Rate Rising

Little reported among the 'strong' jobs data...

NOVEMBER's payrolls report from the BLS was never in doubt for the USA's massive consumerist/services economy, writes Gary Tanashian in his Notes from the Rabbit Hole.

Two notables are that manufacturing kicked up after having been negative over the last 12 months, and government hiring remained accelerated. What gives?

Was there a knee-jerk in manufacturing hiring because of Trump's win and its implications for deregulated corporations, tax breaks for corporations gave the all-clear?

Was it a usual pre-holiday bump? Or was it legacy hiring initiatives that were already in play, too late to be walked back by the lame duck democrat administration after the election loss?

Same question for the inexplicable government hiring during a month when all the air came out of the party in power's balloon, deflating it into lame duck status. Were these contracted government hires, set before the election results? I'll go with that as my guess.

All in all, it seems strange. But it is what it is, pending the likely downward revisions that tend to come later, in the shadows.

Meanwhile, the slow-moving unemployment rate is still doing its base/bottom/upturn thing as an officially recognized recession creeps forward...

...inch by inch, step by step.