What Does the November Jobs Report Mean for the Federal Reserve?

A stronger-than-expected jobs report strengthened traders’ belief that the Federal Reserve will cut its influential interest rate again in December.

In November, employers added 227,000 jobs, and the counts for previous months were revised upward, indicating that the labor market may be in better shape than previously thought.

In the wake of the report, traders were pricing in an 87% chance that the Fed will make a quarter-point cut in their meeting on Dec. 17-18, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, which forecasts rate movements based on fed funds futures trading data. That’s up from 71% on Thursday and 66% last week.

“It was already widely expected that the Federal Open Market Committee would move forward with another 25-basis point rate cut in December, and the latest employment report is unlikely to change that,” wrote Moody’s Analytics’ Economist Dante DeAntonio.

Traders have been especially sensitive to jobs data as Federal Reserve officials work to balance their fight against inflation with the mandate to keep unemployment low. Concerns about a weakening job market spurred the Fed to cut its influential fed funds rate for the first time since 2020 in September.