U.S. companies continued their robust pace of hiring in November. The November U.S. Employment Report showed 211k new jobs were added while the unemployment rate held at 5%, a 7 and half-year low. This report cemented expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates after the December 16th meeting. Average hourly earnings gained 0.2%, in line with expectations. The Q3 productivity and costs report showed a much stronger than expected 1.8% QoQ gain in unit labor costs, up from a 1.4% QoQ gain in Q2. The broadly defined U-6 unemployment rate rose to 9.9% from 9.8% in October, which could reflect a slight gain of 0.1% in labor-force participation to 62.5%.