Just a week before the next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, in which the Federal Reserve decides its next interest rate moves (if any), the government's much anticipated non-farm payrolls report was released this morning.

Jobs got a big boost. Employers added 132,000 workers to their payrolls in November -- much larger than the 100,000 to 110,000 anticipated by economists. Nonetheless, unemployment rate (which is calculated off a different set of numbers than payrolls), rose to 4.5% from 4.4% the previous month. Workers' average hourly earnings rose 0.2%, or 3 cents, after rising 0.4% in October. Economists expected a 0.3% increase in hourly wages.

In a nutshell, more jobs and rising incomes mean more money for consumers to spend. That, in turn, could help the economy weather the slump in housing and manufacturing.

By all accounts, this could mean the U.S. economy actually could experience the soft landing so often talked about. It seems for now that the prolonged (17 consecutive rate hikes) tightening by the Fed didn't cause the economy to slow too much. The Fed will probably not move in next week's December 12th meeting. Fed chairman, Bernanke, said before that he doesn't see the weakness in the housing markets spilling over, despite the tight labor market evidenced in October. This could prove him right. Regardless, the Fed has slowly been changing its focus from inflation to economic growth as both housing and manufacturing have contracted lately.

Despite the overall good news, investors who were hoping the Fed's next move would be a rate cut are likely disappointed this morning. But, although stocks opened slightly down this morning, they are moving up as of 9:45 a.m. Most investors recognize the good news in the jobs report.