WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. job growth likely increased at a strong clip in November and wages rebounded as the distortions from the recent hurricanes faded, creating a portrait of a healthy economy that analysts say does not require the kind of fiscal stimulus that President Donald Trump is proposing.
According to a Reuters survey of economists, the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday will likely show that nonfarm payrolls rose by 200,000 jobs last month after surging 261,000 in October.
Employment gains in October were boosted by the return to work of thousands of employees who had been temporarily dislocated by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. November’s report will be the first clean reading since the storms, which also impacted September’s employment data.
The unemployment rate is forecast to be unchanged at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent. Average hourly earnings are expected to have risen 0.3 percent in November after being flat the prior month. That would lift the annual increase in wages to 2.7 percent from 2.4 percent in October.
Readings in line with expectations would underscore the economy’s strength and fuel criticism of efforts by Trump and his fellow Republicans in the U.S. Congress to cut the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent.
“The labor market is in great shape. Tax cuts should be used when the economy needs tax cuts and it doesn’t need tax cuts right now,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.
“When politics and economics are mixed in the stew, the policies that are created often have a very awful smell.”
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