The US employment data for November looks almost surreal.

On the corporate layoffs front, the numbers are shockingly high—the Challenger report shows that 153,000 people were laid off in a single month, with the annual layoff rate soaring to 175.3%, and the monthly rate is even more staggering at 183%. What does that mean? Basically, the number of people laid off this month is almost three times that of last month. Companies are cutting costs at lightning speed.

But strangely, the unemployment data still looks "okay." For the week ending November 29, the number of initial jobless claims was 216,000, slightly below the market expectation of 220,000. The four-week moving average did rise to 223,750, but the number of continuing jobless claims (for the week ending November 22) was 1.96 million, basically in line with the expected 1.961 million.

What does this indicate? Are those who got laid off finding new jobs quickly? Or is there a lag in data transmission?

Looking at a few other indicators: the Global Supply Chain Pressure Index dropped to -0.06 in November, which does show that supply chain pressures are easing; EIA natural gas inventories decreased by 1.1 billion cubic feet, but that's lower than the expected 1.8 billion, so energy demand doesn't seem too strong.

Right now, the market is focused on one question: there’s a wave of layoffs, but unemployment data is holding steady—is the labor market still resilient, or has the bad news just not fully shown up yet?

The next few months of employment reports will likely be even more critical.