Nice Jobs Report. But What About the Economy Ms. Yellen?

And she has cited the labor market’s cumulative progress in recent years, with the unemployment rate down to 5% from 10% in 2009, and employers adding an average of more than 200,000 jobs a month in 2015.

137-a-12-(Hugh Johnson, chairman, Hugh Johnson Advisors, in AP interview)-“very good news”-Economist Hiugh Johnson says the report shows worker salaries continue to inch higher”.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5%, and the number of unemployed came in at 7.9 million, essentially unchanged.

Still, the second month of strong job gains should allay fears the economy has hit a soft patch, after reports showing tepid consumer spending in October and a slowdown in services industry growth in November.

The big gain during October was also revised upward another 18,000 and weaker payroll or September was also revised up another 8,000.

“As the Fed considers the first rate hike since March 2006, this jobs report will surely bolster the argument for an increase in mid-December”, he says. More Americans started looking for jobs, and almost all found them.

“The employment report should remove the final doubts about a rate hike at the December meeting”. “The job market still has a lot of steam and the Fed should be comfortable raising interest rates”. That’s a sign people think more jobs are available. The department upwardly revised its job figures for the previous two months.

The Fed has kept its key short-term rate at a record low near zero for seven years.

Yellen mentioned that the economy is required to generate only under 100,000 jobs every month to maintain growth in the working age population. Though the pivotal policy meeting is less than two weeks away, she said that would still hinge on whether incoming information supported the Fed’s outlook. Most economists have forecast that it will grow at a still relatively subpar 2.5 percent this year, only slightly above its average pace since the recession officially ended in mid-2009.

Ms. Yellen noted that one reason not to delay a rate hike too much longer is to avoid the need for faster increases that could be more disruptive to the economy than the gradual rate path policymakers prefer.

“There is no doubt that if we had to intensify the use of our instruments to ensure that we achieve our price stability mandate, we would”, he said in a speech at the Economic Club of NY. The mining sector continued to shed jobs – 11,000 last month – amid a global rout in commodities.