Third-quarter US unit labor costs revised down; private payrolls miss expectations

U.S. unit labor costs were much weaker than initially thought in the third quarter amid robust worker productivity, providing a boost to the Federal Reserve's fight against inflation. The inflation outlook was further brightened by other data on Wednesday showing a moderation in wage growth in November. "The decline in labor costs points to a further slowdown in services inflation, the last front in the Fed's effort to bring inflation back to 2%," said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York.

Related Keywords

Dallas ,Texas ,United States ,Washington ,New York ,Bill Adams ,Chizu Nomiyama ,Lucia Mutikani ,Labor Department Bureau Of Statistics ,Comerica Bank ,Reuters ,National Employment ,Federal Reserve ,Stanford Digital Economy Lab ,Nancy Vanden Houten ,Oxford Economics ,Labor Department ,Labor Statistics ,Wall Street ,Employment Report ,United Auto Workers ,Worker Productivity ,Labor Costs ,Nflation Outlook ,Interest Rates ,Labor Market ,