This Was A Bulletproof Jobs Report
The labor force participation rate rose to 63.0%, from 62.8%, and the employment to population ratio returned to its September level of 58.6%, up from 58.3% in October.
Revisions were also good as the September number was revised up 12,000 to 175,000 and October revised slightly downwards to 200,000 from 204,000.
Previous economic reports the past two weeks have had impressive top-line numbers, but the underlying data has been week. Third quarter GDP came in at 3.6% yesterday, but that was entirely due to to a build-up in inventories. Last week, building permits surged, up 6.2% month-over-month, but most of the growth was in multi-family units, a volatile economic indicator.
Not so in this report. The underlying numbers matched the strong top-line ones.
The only slight blemish in the report is that the ranks of the long-term unemployed rose by 3,000, but that is essentially unchanged at 4.1 million.
Overall, it was a very solid report.