The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics finally released the delayed November non-farm payroll report on the evening of December 16, revealing an interesting "contrast"—on the surface, jobs are increasing, but the difficulty of finding work is rising.

What does the data look like? In November, 64,000 new jobs were added, beating market expectations of 45,000. Sounds good. But on the other hand, the unemployment rate jumped to 4.6%, higher than expected. Coupled with a sharp revision of October's data, which saw a reduction of 105,000 jobs—the largest monthly decline since the end of 2020. This revision makes the overall picture a bit awkward.

Why was October so bad? It’s somewhat absurd—due to the Trump administration’s "delayed resignation" plan, federal employees were collectively removed from the payroll, cutting 162,000 government jobs all at once. This is a human factor, not a true market reflection. However, the rebound in November indicates these jobs have gradually returned to the payroll.

But does this rebound mean the labor market is healthy? Not necessarily. The continued rise in the unemployment rate suggests that finding a job is getting harder, and layoffs are increasing. Wage growth is also slowing down. The entire labor market is like a roller coaster—employment numbers are bouncing around, but market participants are exiting one by one.

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs analysts are not fully convinced by this report. They believe the government shutdown interference has made the data less reliable. Powell warned the market last week that this report might be distorted. The real picture will only be clear once December data is released in early January.

What will the Federal Reserve do? Market traders’ reactions after seeing the data are quite interesting—stock index futures initially surged, then quickly retreated. The dollar weakened. Overall, traders are still betting on the possibility of two rate cuts by 2026.

There are two camps in the debate: one believes the Fed should "pause and observe" for a few more months before making any moves. The other argues that the labor market has already cooled enough, and rate cuts next year are likely to be more frequent than the Fed currently hints.

From another perspective, employment has not collapsed abruptly, but it is indeed weakening—which conveniently gives the Fed more reason to continue easing liquidity. For risk assets like BTC and ETH, expectations of rate cuts often mean looser funding conditions. So, although this report is a roller coaster, logically it supports a bullish outlook for the crypto market.