BBC: US jobs report shows rise in unemployment

The unemployment rate in the US ticked up to 4.6% last month - up from 4.4% in September - as hiring remained slow, the Labor Department says.

Employers added 64,000 jobs in November, according to the report. That was a bit more than expected, but the agency also says that there were fewer jobs added in September and August than it had initially estimated.

The weeks-long government shutdown may not have had much of an effect on payroll numbers, economists say.

Workers who were furloughed during the shutdown were counted as employed in the Labor Department’s survey of businesses.

But Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY-Parthenon, notes that a sweeping federal workforce restructuring could muddy the numbers.

Tens of thousands of federal workers were expected to fall off payrolls in October after accepting deferred buyouts earlier this year, as part of President Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal government.

"Although combining two months of payroll data might seem to offer greater clarity, the absence of October’s household survey and several one-off factors will leave the report noisy and volatile," Boussour says.

Last week, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the third time this year - but the decision was not unanimous. Internal divisions are creating uncertainty about additional cuts in the coming months.

A lot could depend on incoming data on the jobs market and inflation.

Policymakers disagree about how the US central bank should balance competing priorities: a weakening job market on the one hand, and rising prices on the other. The Fed typically cuts interest rates when it thinks the job market needs a boost and raises them when it thinks prices are rising too quickly.

Fed chair Jerome Powell said last week that central bankers needed time to see how the Fed's three cuts this year work their way through the US economy, adding that they will closely examine new data ahead of the Fed's next meeting in January.

“We are well-positioned to wait to see how the economy evolves," Powell told reporters

Jeff