For many investors, Friday's jobs report confirmed expectations that the Federal Reserve is on track to cut interest rates

The job market remains stable but isn’t growing substantially. This may lead to more interest rate cuts when the Fed meets in December.

The conventional wisdom among economists and traders is that the Federal Reserve is going to cut its benchmark interest rate by another quarter of a percentage point on Dec. 18, and then pause at its first meeting in 2025.

In her first major policy speech, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack said on Friday she’s keeping her options open when it comes to the central bank’s next policy meeting, as broader economic conditions continue to argue for a slowdown in the pace of rate cuts.

Inflation stayed stubborn, and the job market bounced back in recent reports, but not enough to derail market expectations that the Federal Reserve would boost the economy again in December with another rate cut.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack said policymakers are “at or near” the point where the central bank should slow the pace of interest-rate reductions, citing a strong economy and still-elevated inflation.

The Federal Open Market Committee is most likely to cut interest rates again to 4.25% to 4.5% on December 18 according to fixed income markets.

Don’t be fooled by the healthy rebound in U.S. payroll growth of 227,000 in November. It’s a big number that was above expectations, but much of that was not new job growth. Rather, it was the return

The latest snapshot of the US labor market nudged the Federal Reserve closer to lowering interest rates later this month, but didn’t quite seal the deal with a key inflation report looming.

The 227,000 increase in new jobs in November was inflated by workers returning to their jobs after a pair of major hurricanes and a strike at Boeing. Just how much? Some 30,000 of the "new" jobs were likely Boeing employees.

Why can't a "strong" labor market also mean affordable mortgage rates? On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released what was generally considered a positive jobs report for November. Though unemployment inched up slightly from 4.