News Bites
Gold prices holding firm but sees little movement as ADP reports job gains of 127,000, missing expectations
(Kitco News) - The gold market is holding on to solid gains but is not seeing movement in initial reaction to weaker than expected private sector jobs gains in November.
Wednesday, private payrolls processor ADP said that 127,000 jobs were created in November. The data significantly missed expectations as Economists were looking for job gains of around 196,000.
The gold market is not seeing any major movement to the disappointing labor market data. February gold futures last traded at $1,774.80 an ounce, up 0.62% on the day.
Some economists have said that the weaker-than-expected employment data should continue to support prices as it gives the Federal Reserve room to ease the pace of its monetary policy tightening next month.
According to the CME FedWatch Tool markets see a nearly 70% chance that the Federal Reserve raises interest rates by 50 basis points in December.
Looking at a breakdown of the labor, market, the report noted that the manufacturing sector was the hardest hit last month losing 100,000 jobs.
In total the goods-producing industries saw job losses of 86,000 jobs in November. The construction sector saw job losses of 2,000 positions. Only the mining sector bucked the trend, creating 16,000 jobs.
Service-providing sectors saw job gains of 213,000. Trades, transportation and utilities created 62,000 jobs in November. Information sector lost 25,000 jobs; financial activities lost 34,000 jobs; professional and businesses services saw job losses of 77,000 positions; the education sector saw job gains of 55,000; the hospitality sector saw the biggest increase with jobs years of 224,000 positions. Other service-sector jobs increased by 8,000.
While job creation was slightly weaker than expected, the report note that wage, falling from recent highs remains elevated.
“Pay growth remained elevated even as it continued a modest but broad-based deceleration. Job changers notched their fifth straight slowdown and the smallest increase in pay since January,” the report said.
Workers who changed their job last month saw a pay increase of 15.1%; at the same time, those who stayed in their jobs saw a gain of 7.6%.
