Job market renews strength as countries progress

The US job market is benefiting from an unlikely source: Other countries.

The global economy is showing renewed strength, with Europe, Japan and many developing nations growing in tandem for the first time in a decade. The brightening international picture is encouraging more hiring in the United States— even among manufacturers, which have been hurt in the past by global competition.

“We’re seeing demand coming from where we haven’t seen it in a long, long time,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West. “We’re riding the wave of that added global growth.”

In November, US employers added a substantial 228,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday. It was the 86th straight month of gains, the longest on record, and a sign of the job market’s enduring strength in the economy’s ninth year of expansion. The unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent, a 17year low.

Friday’s jobs report coincided with other signs that the US economy remains on firm footing. In the past six months, economic growth has exceeded an annual rate of 3 percent, the first time that’s happened since 2014. Consumer confidence has reached its highest level since 2000.

Europe’s economy is poised to grow at the fastest pace in a decade, and its unemployment rate has reached its lowest level in nearly nine years. Japan’s economy expanded in the fall for the seventh straight quarter, its longest period of growth since 2001. Such developing economies as China and India are growing steadily.

The overall global economy is expanding at its fastest pace in seven years, according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, a Paris-based think tank. It should fare slightly better in 2018, the OECD says. /