Sullivan: Jobs report better than expected

>> i've heard --

>> the top number is out, november jobs number t.o. cnbc's brian sullivan for the latest. brian, what are they?

>> reporter: better than expected. 146,000 jobs created in november.

>> wow.

>> reporter: the expectation was for 85,000 jobs to be cruiserweighted, guys, and the unemployment rate drops to 7.7%. there was a lot of concern around this number not only because of the election, maybe firms sitting on their hands but superstorm sandy. still, guys, the number much better than expected. few tuesday, which were down right before the numbers hit, turned around. they are now higher fractionally so a big turn for stock futures and better than expected jobs number for november. i can dig in more once i get to the website. but those are your headline numbers. better than expected.

>> gillian, better than expected. a lot of people blamed hurricane sandy again but that's encouraging.

>> i have two economists, a liberal, who both said it was going to be somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 jobs -- say that go sandy was worth 80 -- negatively 80,000 to 100,000. you take 146,000 and this could have been a 200-plus number.

>> it's interesting because it ties in with consumer data we've been seeing which actually, you know, is not great. it's not buoyant, but it's not bad. and you look at the fact what american households have been doing recently with debt and the degree of debt they've been repaying, sort of deleveraging. you add it together and actually it's not booming but it's not --

>> i want to add if we don't embrace washington and everybody else economic growth we're all in trouble. we can't begin to solve these problems. we have to get back to 4% or 5%. they have policies. medium sized businesses.

>> the overall trend over the past several months have been fairly encouraging, right? if you don't own apple stock.

>> yeah, the trends -- with the exception of that, i guess. if you owned it for a number of years you've done very well, joe. going through the numbers here a little bit more, looking at the long-term unemployed, little changed. that remains about the same. we're seeing people again. if you have a four-year college degree and you're above 25 years old because that's key and where they cut it off, you're pretty much fully employed. it technically full on employment according to economists. we are seeing average hourly earnings and weekly wages tick up a bit, too, which is good. we talk about median incomes, haven't really done much over the last decade or so. not a big jump but a little jum am and a jump nonetheless which is what we want to see. as the labor force constricts, as employers are forced to be a little more sort of aggressive in their hiring, they will have to offer higher wages to get the people they need as employees finally have more bargaining power when the job markets get better so we're seeing average hourly earnings tick up as well. futures turned around. all around a much better than expected jobs number.

>> fan ttastic.

>> that's incredible.

>> all right.

>> brian sullivan , thank you.

>> i'll tell you what --

>> get the fiscal deal done, get this done.

>> we're going to get it done.

>> there we go.

>> a new poll --

>> and you get to run on a nice economy, right? then what do you do? peace and prosperity. here we go.

>> peace breaks out.

>> the president's policies may not be so bad for this country.

>> let's not jump off that