Fitch: October non-farm payrolls "real number" may be 119,000

Fitch Ratings stated that one method of understanding the fluctuations in US employment is to add the estimated impact of strikes (44,000 people) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to the employment growth data for October, and then take a three-month moving average. The resulting data is 119,000 people, which is slower than the average of 207,000 people per month in the first half of this year, but not a sharp decline. Given the broader evidence that consumer strength continues, the Federal Reserve is unlikely to attach great importance to the overall figure of 12,000 people.