‘That Is The Sweet Spot!’ CNN Anchor Stunned By New Jobs Report and Inflation ‘Cooling’

CNN anchor John Berman was stunned by economic numbers that included a new jobs report and inflation cooling, exclaiming “That is the sweet spot!”

Friday morning saw the release of a new jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed better-than-expected job creation of 199,000 in November and an unemployment rate that ticked down to 3.7 percent:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 199,000 in November, and the unemployment rate edged down to 3.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care and government. Employment also increased in manufacturing, reflecting the return of workers from a strike. Employment in retail trade declined.

On Friday’s edition of CNN News Central, Berman and Senior Business Correspondent Rahel Solomon broke down the details of the report:

JOHN BERMAN: The breaking news, an early holiday gift on the economy. In fact, in a way, it’s the gift that keeps on giving! The jobs report just in a few minutes ago, beating expectations, 199,000 new jobs added and the unemployment rate dropped. It is low.

CNN’s Rahel Solomon is with us now. And like I said, this is the gift that keeps on giving! The story of 2023 is an economy that just stayed strong!

RAHEL SOLOMON: Yeah, John, it’s the story of 2023. It’s the story of 2022 because as you pointed out, this is the 35th month of job growth. So this is the gift that’s been giving for almost three years now.

So let’s go through the numbers, 199,000 jobs, as you pointed out, in the month of November. To put that in perspective, the expectation had been closer to 180,000. Now, when you look at the prior two months, so October, that actually remained at 150,000. That was not changed.

September, however, was revised lower by about 35,000. And if you look at the chart on your screen, you can see, look, this is a strong report. But you can clearly see a slowing there, a cooling there. But it is gradual in the way that I think a lot of people would like to see.

Now, part of the boost this month, John, was that strikes came to an end. Right. You think about the auto workers joining the payrolls again, you think about some of the actors joining the payroll. So that was a sort of boost for November.

If you look at the industries and really get under the hood here, health care, government manufacturing, all adding between 28,000 jobs to 77,000 jobs for the month of November. We did, however, see some declines in retail trade.

Now, unemployment, this is the part of the report that folks were watching very closely. In fact, Citibank put out in a research note, this is the most important aspect of the report. And it actually ticked down to 3.7%.

We have been in this tight range for almost a year and a half of about 3.4 to 3.9% for unemployment for, again, about 18 months. So we’re still stuck in this tight range. The question now is it’s a gradual softening, but still strong.

So what does the Fed do with this? We’re going to learn a lot more about that when they meet for their last meeting of the year next Tuesday and Wednesday. Best believe, John, they will be asked about how they’re interpreting this report. But as you said, at least for now, it is the gift that keeps on giving.

JOHN BERMAN: Inflation, cooling. Unemployment not rising. That is the sweet spot that so many economists have been looking for the last few years! And as we sit here at the end of 2023, it seems to be at least being achieved.

RAHEL SOLOMON: It is the soft landing. It is the soft landing that everyone sort of had hoped for. And it looks like the calls that we may actually that the Fed may actually get this right are growing, but we’ll only know sort of as the months go on. But as you pointed out, inflation is cooling, the labor market is cooling slowly. And yet consumer spending, at least from what we can see, is still hanging tight.

JOHN BERMAN: And the idea just one last point that you made there. We’ve been in this band of 3.4 to 3.9% unemployment. That’s really low! For an economy to be stuck at a rate less than 4%. That’s a very low place for unemployment to be.

RAHEL SOLOMON: It’s a great point. And the one thing that you’ve heard a lot from Jay Powell over the last year, year and a half, is that we need more workers. You want to see more workers come off the sidelines. So that’s part of the reason here. Right. And so it’s very low. We are starting to get some help on the labor force participation side. But this is this is a sweet spot. This is the Goldilocks that so many people had been hoping for.

Watch above via CNN News Central.