"Last week, the government reported that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 7.2 percent in the third quarter, the strongest pace in nearly two decades.

Despite that, the economy shed 41,000 non-farm jobs as gains in productivity enabled firms to meet increased demand for goods and services without expanding their workforce.

The Labor Department said on Thursday non-farm business productivity climbed at an 8.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter, accelerating from an upwardly revised 7.0 percent gain in the prior three months."

How do you expect real job gains when productivity is growing faster than GDP? The drop was a weekly number and could be the start of something good, but the productivity to GDP number needs to go below 1. On the plus side the productivity gains alone are real good news for US competitiveness.

Regards,
Mark