The U.S. labor market data released last week on Friday showed that the U.S. unemployment rate held firm at 3.7%, marking a 49-year low. The U.S. economy added 250k jobs during October beating estimates of 194k jobs.
However, the jobs for September were revised lower to 118k. Wage growth in the U.S. rose 3.1% on the year in October marking the most significant increase.
Meanwhile, Canada’s unemployment data was also released. The official data showed that Canada’s unemployment rate fell unexpectedly to 5.8%. However, the employment change rose just 11.2k which was below estimates of 12.7k.
The markets are looking to a quiet open today. The European trading session is expected to see only the release of Spain’s unemployment change and the Eurozone Sentix investor confidence report.
In the UK, the services PMI report from Markit will be out. Economists polled forecast that the services sector could fall to 53.4 after registering 53.9 in the month before.
The NY trading session will see Markit’s final services PMI coming out followed by the ISM non-manufacturing PMI. Estimates put non-manufacturing activity index to ease to 59.3 from 61.6 in September.
