November job reports data rolled in Friday brimming with positive data: More than 321,000 new employees were added to U.S. payrolls, about 100,000 more than expected. Some industries expected this growth due to seasonal work - i.e. retail, leisure and hospitality - however, large gains were also noted in high-wage positions including financial, engineering and computer design fields.
According to one metric, which measures how much employers are expanding or shrinking their payrolls, November was the strongest month of improvement since 1998. The last two months of job gains have far exceeded predictions, suggesting that the economy is on a fast track to recovery.
How does jobs data affect mortgage rates?
The only potential downside to all of this growth: Some worry it will cause Fed officials to start raising central interest rates at least by mid-2015 to stave off excessive inflation. This means that the ultra-low mortgage rates we've enjoyed over the past few months could be gone in a flash, depending on how the Fed interprets various economic indicators.
A minor caveat to all of the rosy data was a slight lag in consumer credit spending, dropping from $15.4 billion in September to $13.2 billion the following month, likely indicating that Americans were monitoring their spending habits before the holiday season. However, wage growth also picked up 0.4% in November - much more of which will be needed before interest rates start to rise.
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