I celebrated my birthday in an original way this past week by asking my friends to join me at BATL, the uniquely casual urban venue, for an axe throwing tournament. I know you’re probably thinking that throwing axes sounds rather risky and like a disaster waiting to happen – but it was in fact quite fun and liberating to throw sharp objects at a wooden target.
My axe throwing skills were slightly weaker than expected, much like the Canadian employment data for November, which was released this morning, posting a 10K decline in employment, and a move lower in the unemployment rate to 6.60%.
My husband’s axe throwing skills were well above expectation, much like the US employment data, as he won the entire tournament with his impressing lumber jacking skills. Strength is being seen not only in the headline numbers for the US but in the content of the report as well. The U.S. created 321,000 jobs versus expectations of 230,000 while the October print was revised higher to 243,000 from a previously announced 214,000 jobs. The unemployment rate held constant at 5.8%, in-line with expectations. Looking at the details of the report, average hourly earnings saw a pick-up of 0.4% and wage growth proved to be strong.
It’s worthwhile to mention that the current decade remains well ahead of any other decade in terms of aggregate job creation 5-years into the decade - to put it in perspective, this decade is 2.3 million jobs ahead of the next closest decade. It’s also worthwhile to give special axe throwing mention to my girlfriend Adrienne - who came in second - and to our friend Sandro for getting a bullseye with the “big” axe.
Last but not least, last week, I mentioned passing along our Chief Economist’s thoughts on oil – today he conveniently released an update on oil and answers some of the questions we’ve been scratching our heads over – questions like: Why did oil prices decline? Where could oil prices go from here? What are the implications for markets? And more … click here to read the report.