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US employment growth.

 Economists expect the US economy to continue adding jobs in November despite rising interest rates and concerns of a looming recession. Wall Street expects the number of people on US payrolls to have increased by 200,000 from the previous month, according to economists polled by Reuters. US job creation has come in stronger than expected for seven months, bolstering the case for the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise its policy rates by a historically significant 0.75 percentage points in the past four meetings as it battles with high inflation. «The Fed will be hoping for some loosening in labour market conditions in next week’s report to justify a smaller increment policy rate hike at its next meeting in December, as is widely expected,» said Horsfield.

Conflicting currents buffeted the Chinese economy in November, muddying the picture of the strength of the country’s factory sector. The Caixin-Markit manufacturing purchasing managers’ index should provide clues. Analysts at Barclays predict a reading of 49 for the Caixin PMI data, below the 50-point threshold that separates contraction from expansion, and an acceleration to the downturn signalled by last month’s reading of 49.2. Consensus estimates for the country’s official manufacturing PMI, which places greater emphasis on larger, state-owned companies than the Caixin gauge, also forecast a reading of 48.9.

Inflation has been rising in the eurozone for 16 consecutive months, yet economists expect this trend to have been broken in November. If they are correct, it may be enough to convince the European Central Bank to reduce the size of rate rises at its meeting next month. According to a Reuters poll of economists, the harmonised index of consumer prices for the 19-country single currency bloc is expected to rise 10.4 per cent in the year to November. While still painfully high, this would mark a significant change of direction, dipping from the eurozone’s record inflation of 10.6 per cent in October.

Economists expect the fall to be caused by the «base effect» of a drop in energy prices from the year-ago period. ECB rate-setters will watch core inflation, excluding volatile energy and food prices, just as closely as the headline.

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  1. Roy28 November 2022 at 14:53

    200,000 might seem like a lot of new jobs but considering how many people are leaving or have left their jobs in the past 12 months, well, this doesn't seem like that much. Any new jobs is better than no new jobs but it's nothing to write home about, not yet, at least.

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