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2021-12-06

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The November Jobs Report Was Muddled. The Fed’s Plans Are Clear.<blockquote>11月份的就业报告混乱不堪。美联储的计划很明确。</blockquote>

On the surface, the November jobs report looked awful. But the details offer tentative signs that th

The November Jobs Report Was Muddled. The Fed’s Plans Are Clear.<blockquote>11月份的就业报告混乱不堪。美联储的计划很明确。</blockquote>

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{"i18n":{"language":"zh_CN"},"data":{"magic":2,"id":608482809,"tweetId":"608482809","gmtCreate":1638778507163,"gmtModify":1638778965583,"author":{"id":4089071665449880,"idStr":"4089071665449880","authorId":4089071665449880,"authorIdStr":"4089071665449880","name":"gstrader","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/bc1dc8a3139d4e25f88ab3d2add3f335","vip":1,"userType":1,"introduction":"","boolIsFan":false,"boolIsHead":false,"crmLevel":11,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"individualDisplayBadges":[],"fanSize":9,"starInvestorFlag":false},"themes":[],"images":[],"coverImages":[],"extraTitle":"","html":"<html><head></head><body>Nice</body></html>","htmlText":"<html><head></head><body>Nice</body></html>","text":"Nice","highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":2,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/608482809","repostId":1153108789,"repostType":4,"repost":{"id":"1153108789","kind":"news","pubTimestamp":1638777863,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1153108789?lang=zh_CN&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-12-06 16:04","market":"us","language":"en","title":"The November Jobs Report Was Muddled. The Fed’s Plans Are Clear.<blockquote>11月份的就业报告混乱不堪。美联储的计划很明确。</blockquote>","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1153108789","media":"Barrons","summary":"On the surface, the November jobs report looked awful. But the details offer tentative signs that th","content":"On the surface, the November jobs report looked awful. But the details offer tentative signs that the U.S. labor shortage may be starting to thaw.<blockquote>从表面上看，11月份的就业报告看起来很糟糕。但这些细节提供了美国劳动力短缺可能开始解冻的初步迹象。</blockquote> The Department of Labor conducts two surveys each month that together constitute its employment situation report. The establishment survey of businesses showed a paltry payrolls increase of 210,000 in November, the lowest monthly growth all year and far short of economists’ expectations. The household survey, however, offered a counter narrative. Payrolls, according to that survey, rose 1.1 million in November as some people finally started to re-enter the workforce.<blockquote>劳工部每月进行两次调查，共同构成其就业状况报告。企业机构调查显示，11月份就业人数仅增加21万人，为全年最低月度增幅，远低于经济学家的预期。然而，家庭调查提供了相反的说法。根据该调查，随着一些人终于开始重新进入劳动力市场，11月份就业人数增加了110万。</blockquote> What are investors to make of the mixed messages? Let’s start with squaring the survey discrepancy. Aneta Markowska, chief economist at Jefferies, says the big gap in hiring, taken at face value, suggests that over one million individuals shifted from employment to self-employment. The household survey has historically been more volatile and thus less reliable than its establishment sibling. But if people are shifting to self-employment, as anecdotal evidence suggests, the household survey may be painting a more accurate picture of the labor market, Markowska says.<blockquote>投资者如何看待这些混杂的信息？让我们从消除调查差异开始。杰富瑞(Jefferies)首席经济学家阿内塔·马科夫斯卡(Aneta Markowska)表示，从表面上看，招聘缺口巨大，表明有超过100万人从就业转向自营职业。从历史上看，家庭调查比其机构调查更不稳定，因此不太可靠。但Markowska表示，如果人们转向自营职业，正如轶事证据所表明的那样，家庭调查可能会更准确地描绘出劳动力市场的情况。</blockquote> Sticking with the household survey, then, means acknowledging that the job market is even tighter than it looks. More people are working than it would appear from a record number of job openings and an historically high quits rate. Markowska notes that the strength in household payrolls pushed the unemployment rate down to 4.2% in November—just barely above what the Federal Reserve estimates as the natural rate of unemployment, or the unemployment rate at which inflation remains stable.<blockquote>那么，坚持家庭调查意味着承认就业市场比看起来更加紧张。工作的人比创纪录的职位空缺数量和历史上最高的辞职率所显示的要多。Markowska指出，家庭就业人数的强劲推动11月份失业率降至4.2%，略高于美联储估计的自然失业率，即通胀保持稳定的失业率。</blockquote> More importantly, about 600,000 people returned to the labor force in November. To be counted, a person must either be working or actively seeking employment. The surprise increase in the labor-force participation rate, to 61.8% from the prior month’s 61.6%, represents a new postpandemic high. It marks a pickup that had been elusive for months, and may portend more hiring.<blockquote>更重要的是，11月约有60万人重返劳动力市场。要被计算在内，一个人必须要么正在工作，要么正在积极寻找工作。劳动力参与率从上月的61.6%意外上升至61.8%，创下大流行后新高。这标志着几个月来难以捉摸的回升，并可能预示着更多的招聘。</blockquote> Still, that welcome rise in participation wasn’t enough to meaningfully take the heat off wages. Average hourly earnings cooled a bit in November from October, rising at a 0.3% pace, but held at a hot 4.8% year-over-year rate. Given that the economy is making rapid progress toward full employment, the odds of wage pressures receding more meaningfully aren’t great, says Markowska. While better pay for workers isn’t a bad thing, economists warn that fast-rising wages can spur the type of wage-price spiral that defined the 1970s and makes inflation harder to fight.<blockquote>尽管如此，参与率的可喜上升还不足以有意义地缓解工资压力。11月份平均时薪较10月份略有降温，增长0.3%，但同比仍保持在4.8%的高位。马科夫斯卡表示，鉴于经济在实现充分就业方面取得了快速进展，工资压力更有意义地消退的可能性并不大。虽然提高工人的工资并不是一件坏事，但经济学家警告说，工资的快速上涨可能会刺激20世纪70年代的工资价格螺旋式上升，并使通胀更难对抗。</blockquote> An under-the-radar metric underpins wage concerns. As Renaissance Macro Research points out, an extension in the workweek during November, to 34.8 hours, means that growth in aggregate weekly payrolls was stronger in November versus October. That series, a proxy for labor income, is up 11.8% annualized over the past three months and puts pressure on the Fed, researchers there say.<blockquote>一个不为人知的指标支撑了工资担忧。正如Renaissance Macro Research指出的那样，11月份每周工作时间延长至34.8小时，意味着11月份每周总就业人数的增长比10月份更强劲。研究人员表示，该系列代表劳动收入，过去三个月年化增长11.8%，给美联储带来了压力。</blockquote> Add it all up and the Fed is on track to speed up the pace of reductions to its emergency bond-buying program. In recent testimony, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that officials would debate doing so, and there is a growing cadre of Fed officials publicly expressing a desire to wrap up the program sooner than planned. Ask almost any economists on Wall Street and they will tell you the latest jobs report all but guarantees the Fed will decide to accelerate its tapering to $30 billion from $15 billion a month, meaning the $120 billion in monthly Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases would be completely wound down by March.<blockquote>综合起来，美联储有望加快缩减紧急债券购买计划的步伐。在最近的证词中，美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔表示，官员们将对这样做进行辩论，越来越多的美联储官员公开表示希望比计划更早结束该计划。询问华尔街几乎任何一位经济学家，他们都会告诉你最新的就业报告几乎保证美联储将决定将缩减规模从每月150亿美元加速至300亿美元，这意味着每月1200亿美元的国债和抵押贷款支持证券购买将在3月份完全结束。</blockquote> What comes next—namely, a liftoff in rock-bottom interest rates—is more important, however, and less certain. Powell’s diminished dovishness came at a particularly uncomfortable time. The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has markets worried about slower growth, and Powell’s framing of the new variant as a supply, or inflation, threat instead of a demand, or growth, threat is perplexing, says Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.<blockquote>然而，接下来发生的事情——即最低利率的上升——更为重要，也不太确定。鲍威尔的鸽派态度减弱发生在一个特别不舒服的时候。牛津经济研究院首席美国经济学家Gregory Daco表示，冠状病毒的奥密克戎变种让市场担心增长放缓，鲍威尔将新变种定义为供应或通胀威胁，而不是需求或增长威胁，这令人困惑。</blockquote> Investors are right to wonder if the long-standing “Fed put,” or their confidence that the Fed has the market’s back, is fading. For now, federal-funds futures are still signaling liftoff in June. That’s back to where the futures stood before the revelation of Omicron rocked markets and briefly pushed out rate expectations. Daco says the risk that the Fed lifts as early as March is rising, although he expects the first hike to come in September. After Friday’s data, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, pushed up his liftoff forecast to May, with further hikes in September and December.<blockquote>投资者有理由怀疑长期存在的“美联储看跌期权”，或者他们对美联储得到市场支持的信心是否正在消退。目前，联邦基金期货仍显示出6月份上涨的信号。这又回到了奥密克戎消息披露震动市场并短暂推低利率预期之前的期货状况。达科表示，美联储最早在3月份加息的风险正在上升，尽管他预计首次加息将在9月份进行。周五公布数据后，Pantheon Macroeconomics首席经济学家伊恩·谢泼德森(Ian Shepherdson)将加息预期上调至5月份，并在9月和12月进一步加息。</blockquote> A lot can happen between now and March, or May, so it’s too soon to say the Fed put is kaput. Some economists note that Powell’s hawkish pivot might have come just as inflation is peaking. Consider, for example, the 20% drop in crude-oil and gasoline prices in the past month.<blockquote>从现在到三月或五月之间可能会发生很多事情，因此现在说美联储看跌期权已经失效还为时过早。一些经济学家指出，鲍威尔的鹰派转向可能是在通胀见顶之际出现的。例如，考虑一下过去一个月原油和汽油价格下跌20%。</blockquote> Monetary policy seems about to shift, after a long time of holding steady with rates on the floor, because even though inflation might be topping out, it is already too high. But it’s a good time to remember that everything is relative, including Fed officials who sound hawkish. The November jobs report might have sealed the deal on faster tapering, but it will take more to get the Fed to lift rates before the summer.<blockquote>在利率长期稳定在最低水平后，货币政策似乎即将发生转变，因为尽管通胀可能已见顶，但它已经太高了。但现在是记住一切都是相对的好时机，包括听起来鹰派的美联储官员。11月份的就业报告可能已经敲定了加快缩减规模的协议，但要让美联储在夏季之前加息还需要更多的时间。</blockquote>","source":"lsy1601382232898","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>The November Jobs Report Was Muddled. The Fed’s Plans Are Clear.<blockquote>11月份的就业报告混乱不堪。美联储的计划很明确。</blockquote></title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 12.5px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nThe November Jobs Report Was Muddled. The Fed’s Plans Are Clear.<blockquote>11月份的就业报告混乱不堪。美联储的计划很明确。</blockquote>\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\nBarrons2021-12-06 16:04\n\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\nOn the surface, the November jobs report looked awful. But the details offer tentative signs that the U.S. labor shortage may be starting to thaw.<blockquote>从表面上看，11月份的就业报告看起来很糟糕。但这些细节提供了美国劳动力短缺可能开始解冻的初步迹象。</blockquote> The Department of Labor conducts two surveys each month that together constitute its employment situation report. The establishment survey of businesses showed a paltry payrolls increase of 210,000 in November, the lowest monthly growth all year and far short of economists’ expectations. The household survey, however, offered a counter narrative. Payrolls, according to that survey, rose 1.1 million in November as some people finally started to re-enter the workforce.<blockquote>劳工部每月进行两次调查，共同构成其就业状况报告。企业机构调查显示，11月份就业人数仅增加21万人，为全年最低月度增幅，远低于经济学家的预期。然而，家庭调查提供了相反的说法。根据该调查，随着一些人终于开始重新进入劳动力市场，11月份就业人数增加了110万。</blockquote> What are investors to make of the mixed messages? Let’s start with squaring the survey discrepancy. Aneta Markowska, chief economist at Jefferies, says the big gap in hiring, taken at face value, suggests that over one million individuals shifted from employment to self-employment. The household survey has historically been more volatile and thus less reliable than its establishment sibling. But if people are shifting to self-employment, as anecdotal evidence suggests, the household survey may be painting a more accurate picture of the labor market, Markowska says.<blockquote>投资者如何看待这些混杂的信息？让我们从消除调查差异开始。杰富瑞(Jefferies)首席经济学家阿内塔·马科夫斯卡(Aneta Markowska)表示，从表面上看，招聘缺口巨大，表明有超过100万人从就业转向自营职业。从历史上看，家庭调查比其机构调查更不稳定，因此不太可靠。但Markowska表示，如果人们转向自营职业，正如轶事证据所表明的那样，家庭调查可能会更准确地描绘出劳动力市场的情况。</blockquote> Sticking with the household survey, then, means acknowledging that the job market is even tighter than it looks. More people are working than it would appear from a record number of job openings and an historically high quits rate. Markowska notes that the strength in household payrolls pushed the unemployment rate down to 4.2% in November—just barely above what the Federal Reserve estimates as the natural rate of unemployment, or the unemployment rate at which inflation remains stable.<blockquote>那么，坚持家庭调查意味着承认就业市场比看起来更加紧张。工作的人比创纪录的职位空缺数量和历史上最高的辞职率所显示的要多。Markowska指出，家庭就业人数的强劲推动11月份失业率降至4.2%，略高于美联储估计的自然失业率，即通胀保持稳定的失业率。</blockquote> More importantly, about 600,000 people returned to the labor force in November. To be counted, a person must either be working or actively seeking employment. The surprise increase in the labor-force participation rate, to 61.8% from the prior month’s 61.6%, represents a new postpandemic high. It marks a pickup that had been elusive for months, and may portend more hiring.<blockquote>更重要的是，11月约有60万人重返劳动力市场。要被计算在内，一个人必须要么正在工作，要么正在积极寻找工作。劳动力参与率从上月的61.6%意外上升至61.8%，创下大流行后新高。这标志着几个月来难以捉摸的回升，并可能预示着更多的招聘。</blockquote> Still, that welcome rise in participation wasn’t enough to meaningfully take the heat off wages. Average hourly earnings cooled a bit in November from October, rising at a 0.3% pace, but held at a hot 4.8% year-over-year rate. Given that the economy is making rapid progress toward full employment, the odds of wage pressures receding more meaningfully aren’t great, says Markowska. While better pay for workers isn’t a bad thing, economists warn that fast-rising wages can spur the type of wage-price spiral that defined the 1970s and makes inflation harder to fight.<blockquote>尽管如此，参与率的可喜上升还不足以有意义地缓解工资压力。11月份平均时薪较10月份略有降温，增长0.3%，但同比仍保持在4.8%的高位。马科夫斯卡表示，鉴于经济在实现充分就业方面取得了快速进展，工资压力更有意义地消退的可能性并不大。虽然提高工人的工资并不是一件坏事，但经济学家警告说，工资的快速上涨可能会刺激20世纪70年代的工资价格螺旋式上升，并使通胀更难对抗。</blockquote> An under-the-radar metric underpins wage concerns. As Renaissance Macro Research points out, an extension in the workweek during November, to 34.8 hours, means that growth in aggregate weekly payrolls was stronger in November versus October. That series, a proxy for labor income, is up 11.8% annualized over the past three months and puts pressure on the Fed, researchers there say.<blockquote>一个不为人知的指标支撑了工资担忧。正如Renaissance Macro Research指出的那样，11月份每周工作时间延长至34.8小时，意味着11月份每周总就业人数的增长比10月份更强劲。研究人员表示，该系列代表劳动收入，过去三个月年化增长11.8%，给美联储带来了压力。</blockquote> Add it all up and the Fed is on track to speed up the pace of reductions to its emergency bond-buying program. In recent testimony, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that officials would debate doing so, and there is a growing cadre of Fed officials publicly expressing a desire to wrap up the program sooner than planned. Ask almost any economists on Wall Street and they will tell you the latest jobs report all but guarantees the Fed will decide to accelerate its tapering to $30 billion from $15 billion a month, meaning the $120 billion in monthly Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases would be completely wound down by March.<blockquote>综合起来，美联储有望加快缩减紧急债券购买计划的步伐。在最近的证词中，美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔表示，官员们将对这样做进行辩论，越来越多的美联储官员公开表示希望比计划更早结束该计划。询问华尔街几乎任何一位经济学家，他们都会告诉你最新的就业报告几乎保证美联储将决定将缩减规模从每月150亿美元加速至300亿美元，这意味着每月1200亿美元的国债和抵押贷款支持证券购买将在3月份完全结束。</blockquote> What comes next—namely, a liftoff in rock-bottom interest rates—is more important, however, and less certain. Powell’s diminished dovishness came at a particularly uncomfortable time. The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has markets worried about slower growth, and Powell’s framing of the new variant as a supply, or inflation, threat instead of a demand, or growth, threat is perplexing, says Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.<blockquote>然而，接下来发生的事情——即最低利率的上升——更为重要，也不太确定。鲍威尔的鸽派态度减弱发生在一个特别不舒服的时候。牛津经济研究院首席美国经济学家Gregory Daco表示，冠状病毒的奥密克戎变种让市场担心增长放缓，鲍威尔将新变种定义为供应或通胀威胁，而不是需求或增长威胁，这令人困惑。</blockquote> Investors are right to wonder if the long-standing “Fed put,” or their confidence that the Fed has the market’s back, is fading. For now, federal-funds futures are still signaling liftoff in June. That’s back to where the futures stood before the revelation of Omicron rocked markets and briefly pushed out rate expectations. Daco says the risk that the Fed lifts as early as March is rising, although he expects the first hike to come in September. After Friday’s data, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, pushed up his liftoff forecast to May, with further hikes in September and December.<blockquote>投资者有理由怀疑长期存在的“美联储看跌期权”，或者他们对美联储得到市场支持的信心是否正在消退。目前，联邦基金期货仍显示出6月份上涨的信号。这又回到了奥密克戎消息披露震动市场并短暂推低利率预期之前的期货状况。达科表示，美联储最早在3月份加息的风险正在上升，尽管他预计首次加息将在9月份进行。周五公布数据后，Pantheon Macroeconomics首席经济学家伊恩·谢泼德森(Ian Shepherdson)将加息预期上调至5月份，并在9月和12月进一步加息。</blockquote> A lot can happen between now and March, or May, so it’s too soon to say the Fed put is kaput. Some economists note that Powell’s hawkish pivot might have come just as inflation is peaking. Consider, for example, the 20% drop in crude-oil and gasoline prices in the past month.<blockquote>从现在到三月或五月之间可能会发生很多事情，因此现在说美联储看跌期权已经失效还为时过早。一些经济学家指出，鲍威尔的鹰派转向可能是在通胀见顶之际出现的。例如，考虑一下过去一个月原油和汽油价格下跌20%。</blockquote> Monetary policy seems about to shift, after a long time of holding steady with rates on the floor, because even though inflation might be topping out, it is already too high. But it’s a good time to remember that everything is relative, including Fed officials who sound hawkish. The November jobs report might have sealed the deal on faster tapering, but it will take more to get the Fed to lift rates before the summer.<blockquote>在利率长期稳定在最低水平后，货币政策似乎即将发生转变，因为尽管通胀可能已见顶，但它已经太高了。但现在是记住一切都是相对的好时机，包括听起来鹰派的美联储官员。11月份的就业报告可能已经敲定了加快缩减规模的协议，但要让美联储在夏季之前加息还需要更多的时间。</blockquote>\n<div class=\"bt-text\">\n\n\n 来源：<a href=\"https://www.barrons.com/articles/jobs-report-federal-reserve-51638579531?mod=RTA\">Barrons</a>\n为提升您的阅读体验，我们对本页面进行了排版优化\n\n\n</div>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{".DJI":"道琼斯",".SPX":"S&P 500 Index",".IXIC":"NASDAQ Composite"},"source_url":"https://www.barrons.com/articles/jobs-report-federal-reserve-51638579531?mod=RTA","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1153108789","content_text":"On the surface, the November jobs report looked awful. But the details offer tentative signs that the U.S. labor shortage may be starting to thaw.\nThe Department of Labor conducts two surveys each month that together constitute its employment situation report. The establishment survey of businesses showed a paltry payrolls increase of 210,000 in November, the lowest monthly growth all year and far short of economists’ expectations. The household survey, however, offered a counter narrative. Payrolls, according to that survey, rose 1.1 million in November as some people finally started to re-enter the workforce.\nWhat are investors to make of the mixed messages? Let’s start with squaring the survey discrepancy. Aneta Markowska, chief economist at Jefferies, says the big gap in hiring, taken at face value, suggests that over one million individuals shifted from employment to self-employment. The household survey has historically been more volatile and thus less reliable than its establishment sibling. But if people are shifting to self-employment, as anecdotal evidence suggests, the household survey may be painting a more accurate picture of the labor market, Markowska says.\nSticking with the household survey, then, means acknowledging that the job market is even tighter than it looks. More people are working than it would appear from a record number of job openings and an historically high quits rate. Markowska notes that the strength in household payrolls pushed the unemployment rate down to 4.2% in November—just barely above what the Federal Reserve estimates as the natural rate of unemployment, or the unemployment rate at which inflation remains stable.\nMore importantly, about 600,000 people returned to the labor force in November. To be counted, a person must either be working or actively seeking employment. The surprise increase in the labor-force participation rate, to 61.8% from the prior month’s 61.6%, represents a new postpandemic high. It marks a pickup that had been elusive for months, and may portend more hiring.\nStill, that welcome rise in participation wasn’t enough to meaningfully take the heat off wages. Average hourly earnings cooled a bit in November from October, rising at a 0.3% pace, but held at a hot 4.8% year-over-year rate. Given that the economy is making rapid progress toward full employment, the odds of wage pressures receding more meaningfully aren’t great, says Markowska. While better pay for workers isn’t a bad thing, economists warn that fast-rising wages can spur the type of wage-price spiral that defined the 1970s and makes inflation harder to fight.\nAn under-the-radar metric underpins wage concerns. As Renaissance Macro Research points out, an extension in the workweek during November, to 34.8 hours, means that growth in aggregate weekly payrolls was stronger in November versus October. That series, a proxy for labor income, is up 11.8% annualized over the past three months and puts pressure on the Fed, researchers there say.\nAdd it all up and the Fed is on track to speed up the pace of reductions to its emergency bond-buying program. In recent testimony, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that officials would debate doing so, and there is a growing cadre of Fed officials publicly expressing a desire to wrap up the program sooner than planned. Ask almost any economists on Wall Street and they will tell you the latest jobs report all but guarantees the Fed will decide to accelerate its tapering to $30 billion from $15 billion a month, meaning the $120 billion in monthly Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases would be completely wound down by March.\nWhat comes next—namely, a liftoff in rock-bottom interest rates—is more important, however, and less certain. Powell’s diminished dovishness came at a particularly uncomfortable time. The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has markets worried about slower growth, and Powell’s framing of the new variant as a supply, or inflation, threat instead of a demand, or growth, threat is perplexing, says Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.\nInvestors are right to wonder if the long-standing “Fed put,” or their confidence that the Fed has the market’s back, is fading. For now, federal-funds futures are still signaling liftoff in June. That’s back to where the futures stood before the revelation of Omicron rocked markets and briefly pushed out rate expectations. Daco says the risk that the Fed lifts as early as March is rising, although he expects the first hike to come in September. After Friday’s data, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, pushed up his liftoff forecast to May, with further hikes in September and December.\nA lot can happen between now and March, or May, so it’s too soon to say the Fed put is kaput. Some economists note that Powell’s hawkish pivot might have come just as inflation is peaking. Consider, for example, the 20% drop in crude-oil and gasoline prices in the past month.\nMonetary policy seems about to shift, after a long time of holding steady with rates on the floor, because even though inflation might be topping out, it is already too high. But it’s a good time to remember that everything is relative, including Fed officials who sound hawkish. The November jobs report might have sealed the deal on faster tapering, but it will take more to get the Fed to lift rates before the summer.","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{".IXIC":0.9,".DJI":0.9,".SPX":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":3926,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"CN","currentLanguage":"CN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":4,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ZH_CN"},"commentList":[],"hasMoreComment":false,"orderType":2}