CUNA Senior Economist Dawit Kebede issued the following statement in response to the Labor Department’s November Employment Situation:     

“The November employment report showed that the labor market is still strong despite rising interest rates and slowed down activity in some sectors of the economy. Employers added 263,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.7% compared to October.  

“Average hourly earnings increased at 7.2% annualized rate, faster than the increase in October. This indicates that hiring demand is still stronger than supply. Recent job openings and labor turnover report also showed that there are more job openings available than the number of unemployed people. This level of increase in wages and tight labor market is not good news for the Federal Reserve's effort of fighting inflation.  

“However, Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that the Federal Reserve will not be making aggressive rate increase in December like previous meetings although current inflation is higher than target. It will take some time to see the effect of previous rate increases.”