Friday, December 4, 2020Nonfarm payrolls for November came in this Friday morning, notably lower than consensus expectations: 245K new jobs were created last month, even fewer than Wednesday’s private-sector ADP ADP number of 307K, and well below the 430-440K expected. The Unemployment Rate, however, came in at 6.7%, a tick below the 6.8% anticipated and 20 basis points from October.Revisions to the previous two months were net gains overall: September’s tally moved from 672K new jobs originally reported to 711K this morning, while October went from 638K to 610K in the latest update. Average Hourly Earnings rose higher than expected, +0.3% versus 0.1% the previous month, but the Labor Force Participation Rate fell to 61.5%. This amounts to 400K Americans having left the workforce — either from layoffs, companies gone out of business, etc. — and is disturbingly lower from pre-pandemic levels by about 4 million people.By industry, the lion’s share of new jobs (ahead of holiday shopping season) came not from Retail but from Warehousing: 145K. Retail actually lost 35K jobs last month. Professional/Business Services had a good month again, +60K, followed by the most consistent industry job gainer, Healthcare, at 46K. Manufacturing and Construction both performed well on improved housing and homebuilding conditions, +27K and +20K, respectively. Government lost 100K positions last month, most of which came on the federal level and likely involve census-worker layoffs.Temporary layoffs fell for the month, but the number of permanently unemployed Americans rose. Perhaps these types of harsh statistics will spur leaders on Capitol Hill to arrive at a new stimulus agreement that will bring some much-needed relief to the American household and small business. To that end, talks between Senate leader McConnell and House Speaker Pelosi are reportedly on today, perhaps discussing whether to pass a proposed $908 billion package, consisting of new funds totaling $300-350 billion.The Trade Deficit for the month of October also was released this morning, and news here was better than expected: -$63.1 billion is still historically steep, but an improvement from the -$64.7 billion expected, and the near-term low from August of -$67.0 billion, which is also close to the all-time low from prior to the Great Economic Collapse of -$68.3 billion in the mid-2000s. The revision to September was also an improvement, to =$62.1 billion from -$63.9 billion originally reported.Questions or comments about this article and/or its author? Click here>>Looking for Stocks with Skyrocketing Upside?Zacks has just released a Special Report on the booming investment opportunities of legal marijuana.Ignited by new referendums and legislation, this industry is expected to blast from an already robust $6.7 billion to $20.2 billion in 2021. Early investors stand to make a killing, but you have to be ready to act and know just where to look.See the pot trades we're targeting>>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP): Free Stock Analysis Report SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY): ETF Research Reports Invesco QQQ (QQQ): ETF Research Reports SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report