Photo: escapadah.com
By Isaac Cohen*
The announcement, last week by the US Labor Department, that the creation of new jobs reached 227,000 in November revealed that the weak October figure, revised to 36,000 jobs, was a blip mainly caused by successive hurricanes and the strike at Boeing. The unemployment rate increased slightly to 4.2 percent in November, from 4.1 percent in October, while wages increased 4 percent from a year earlier. By sectors, leisure and hospitality, healthcare and the start of the recovery from the hurricanes created more than 50,000 new jobs each, together with 33,000 new hiring by the government.
A week before the next central bank meeting, on December 17-18, the job creation figures provide space for another expected interest rate rebate of 0.25 percent, the third and last of this year.
Therefore, the new incoming administration will receive a strong economy, growing almost 3 percent, the best performance among advanced economies, amid a productivity boom mainly caused by the adoption of artificial intelligence, with low unemployment, record stock market indexes and declining inflation. From this legacy, among the results achieved by the outgoing administration, stands out the creation of almost 16 million jobs in the last four years.
The challenge for next year is if the already proclaimed economic policy objectives of the next government, such as lower taxation, higher import tariffs, less regulations by a smaller federal government and a drastic reduction in immigration, as promised, can improve or at least sustain the legacy.
*International analyst and consultant, former Director ECLAC Washington. Commentator on economic and financial issues for CNN en Español TV and radio, UNIVISION, TELEMUNDO and other media.
