Strong hiring in the US, weak GDP growth in Japan

The slowing US economy is not yet very apparent in the labour market. From Reuters:

A stronger-than-forecast 132,000 jobs were created in November, according to a government report on Friday that implied the U.S. economy had more underlying resilience than previously thought.

The Labor Department, however, said the unemployment rate edged up to 4.5 percent from the 5-1/2-year low of 4.4 percent it reached in October, and a separate report pointed to waning U.S. consumer confidence in December...

The department revised down the number of jobs created in October to 79,000 from a previously reported 92,000 but it said that, in September, a robust 203,000 jobs were created instead of 148,000 as it had reported previously.

Average weekly hours worked were unchanged in November at 33.9. Average hourly earnings rose 0.2 percent, slightly less than the 0.3 percent that had been forecast.

Consumer confidence did fall.

Consumers remain wary, according to the University of Michigan survey. Its consumer sentiment index slipped to 90.2 in December from 92.1 in November, raising questions whether shoppers will spend as much during the holiday shopping season leading up to Christmas.

James Hamilton at Econbrowser says that employment remains solid.

I've argued for combining the BLS and ADP payroll with the BLS household survey data, giving the BLS payroll figure 8 times the weight of either ADP or the household. That weighted average suggests an initial estimate of November employment growth of around 150,000, or the sort of level you'd expect if economic growth was chugging along solidly.

Not so solid is the economic growth in Japan. From AFP/CNA:

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by just 0.2 percent in the three months to September from the previous quarter, down from an initial estimate of 0.5 percent and the second quarter's 0.3 percent gain, the Cabinet Office said...

Weak domestic demand left exports as the main driver of growth, making the economy vulnerable to a slowdown in the United States and Japan's other major trading partners, analysts noted.

Firms also ploughed less money than initially thought into new factories and equipment, a major driver for the economy, the figures showed.

Japanese private-sector core machinery orders, a key gauge of corporate capital spending, rose by a smaller-than-expected 2.8 percent in October from September, a separate cabinet office report showed.

But Japanese companies are probably not complaining. From Reuters:

Japanese companies are likely to post their fifth straight year of record profits in the business year starting next April, propelled by flat TVs, semiconductors and cars, a Japanese brokerage said on Friday.

Recurring profits at the nation's 400 biggest firms excluding financial institutions are expected to climb 13.9 percent to 32.1 trillion yen ($278.6 billion), according to Nomura Securities Co...

For the year to the end of March, recurring profits were seen rising 7.5 percent, in line with Nomura's previous estimate of a 7.4 percent increase, with trading, chemical, electronics, machinery and auto sectors leading the way.