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Job growth was much better than expected in November despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to slow the labor market and tackle inflation. Nonfarm payrolls increased 263,000 for the month while the unemployment rate was 3.7%, the Labor Department reported Friday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for an increase of 200,000 on the payrolls number and 3.7% for the jobless rate. The monthly gain was a slight decrease from October’s upwardly revised 284,000. A broader measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons edged lower to 6.7%. The numbers likely will do little to slow a Fed that has been raising interest rates steadily this year to bring down inflation still running near its highest level in more than 40 years. The rate increases have brought the Fed’s benchmark overnight borrowing rate to a target range of 3.75% to 4%. In another blow to the Fed’s anti-inflation efforts, average hourly earn...

This will likely end up as the biggest Black Friday ever online. Overall online sales for the day after Thanksgiving are expected to top $9 billion , according to Adobe, which tracks sales on retailers’ websites. That would be a record . Through 6 p.m. ET, shoppers spent $7.28 billion at websites. That number could balloon to as much as $9.2 billion before the day is done, Adobe said. The record -breaking spending comes on the heels of a strong day of Thanksgiving shopping in which consumers shelled out an all-time high of $5.29 billion online , up 2.9% year-over-year. Typically, shoppers spend about $2 billion to $3 billion online in a day, according to Adobe.  Black Friday shoppers at the Opry Mills Mall in Nashville, Tennessee, on Nov. 25. Seth Herald / AFP via Getty Images The company said shoppers were picking up Apple products such as watches and AirPods, smart speakers and televisions, espresso machines and gaming consoles, as well as toys from Funko, Hatchimals and Squi...