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After shedding only 11,000 jobs in November and a multi-month trend of upward revisions, analysts are predicting that November could have actually added more jobs than were lost, pointing towards a recovery.

Expect the Unexpected

Expectations are the name of the game when it comes to Wall Street. The median expectation last month was the loss of 125,000 jobs, so the 11,000 figure was incredibly low. In the months prior, job losses were just under expectations by a few thousand jobs, and total losses remained the the six figures.

Monthy Revisions

Due to the fact that the employment report comes out days after the month ends, the numbers that debut on the first Friday of each month are only preliminary and are subject to revisions after more accurate data is compiled days later. The revisions can range from huge to just a few thousand jobs and from positive to negative. The recent trend, however, has been positive, and by tens of thousands of jobs. The months of October and September were revised upward by 159,000 total jobs and September and August tacked on a total of 91,000 jobs.

ADP Still Weak

Even if the numbers are revised upward the only benefit will be psychological. While government numbers indicated that only 11,000 jobs were lost, the ADP employment report reflected a 169,000 drop in the number of employed. ADP numbers and government numbers differ greatly in calculation (mostly because government numbers only include those who qualify for unemployment benefits). I expect, however, that ADP was far more accurate this month than was the BLS.

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