Slow Job Growth Said to Foreshadow Rate Cut: Many Analysts Expect...
The economy is adding jobs so slowly, according to a report issued yesterday by tire Labor Department, that many financial analysts believe the Federal Reserve likely will soon decide to cut short-term interest rates.</br></br>The report said payrolls rose by 166,000 last month, but officials at the Labor Department said that except for a couple of statistical quirks the number would have been below 100,000. Private and government employers have been adding just over 100,000 workers a month to their payrolls since August, a Wring pace less than overall growth of the labor force.</br></br>Meanwhile, the nationÛªs unemployment rate ticked up to 5,6 percent last month from 5.5 percent in October, as the monthly survey of American households found fewer people with jobs and more looking but unable to find them.</br></br>"The November employment report confirms other data pointing to sluggish [economic] activity,Û said Bruce Steinberg, macroeconomics manager at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York. "We expect the Fed to ease policy at the Dec. 19 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.Û</br></br>That committee is the central bankÛªs top policymaking group. It last reduced its target for overnight interest rates, to 5.75 percent from 6 percent, in July.