At 8:30 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, the Labor Department will report its latest figures on hiring and unemployment for November.

The Friday jobs report, as Barclays puts it, is “the last shoe to drop.” That’s because it is the final major data point that Federal Reserve policy makers will have in hand when they decide whether to raise interest rates for the first time in more than nine years.

Barring a freakishly bad number for November — or another economic bolt from the blue before the Dec. 15-16 meeting — a rate increase by the Fed is pretty much a lock. Still, the Fed has been caught by surprise before, so there’s plenty for Wall Street to digest in latest jobs numbers.

In October, employers added a surprisingly robust 271,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate down to 5 percent. Experts aren’t looking for that kind of strength this time around – the consensus estimate calls for an increase of 200,000 in payrolls, with the unemployment rate remaining flat.

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The New York Times