While November’s Canadian jobs report trumped consensus expectations, the U.S. job numbers disappointed. The U.S. unemployment rate fell slightly in November, but the 57,000 new jobs employers added during the month were much less than economists had hoped for.

RBC Financial says consensus expectations were for 140,000 new jobs.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.9% from 6% in October, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday. This is the lowest level since March, when it was at 5.8%.

Non-farm business payrolls grew by a net 57,000 last month, raising the total of job gains since July to 328,000.

November’s figures were held back by grocery store strikes in California, Missouri and other states, which cut up to 30,000 jobs — less any replacement workers hired — during the month.

RBC notes that there was also a large increase in the number of people entering the labour force, and average hourly earnings are up about 2.1% compared to year ago levels. “Also, indicators that suggest further pipeline strength for employment gains include the fact that the manufacturing workweek lengthened for the fifth straight month while manufacturing overtime also increased for the third consecutive month,” RBC says.

“Today’s report had some positive details behind a disappointing headline payrolls rise,” says CIBC. “That said, the three-month jobs tally is actually very light, given that we are coming off an 8.2% real GDP growth rate. Corporate America continues to seek ways to be very lean on costs in light of soft pricing power.”

“As for the Fed, it wants a well-established trend of at least 150,000-200,000 jobs per month before it even thinks about hiking, and we haven ’t yet had a single month at that level,” CIBC says.