Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said in a note that the rise in the US unemployment rate should be enough to strengthen the case for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates by 25 basis points next week. US non-farm payrolls were 227,000 in November, higher than the 214,000 expected by analysts in a Wall Street Journal survey, but the unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1% published on Friday. If Fed policymakers are concerned that Trump is holding back inflation early in his presidency, or about potential upside inflation risks, they may be able to skip the January rate hike. (Jin Ten)