The smallest trade deficit of the year in November and increased company hiring last month provided hints the U.S. economy is rising above a global slowdown, Bloomberg reported.

The trade gap, or the difference in the value of imports and exports, shrank 7.7 percent to $39 billion, the smallest since December 2013, according to figures released today by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Private employment increased by 241,000 in December after a 227,000 gain the prior month, according to data from Roseland, New Jersey-based ADP Research Institute.

A plunge in oil prices and rising U.S. fuel production are helping trim imports, swamping record American demand for foreign-made consumer goods while sales overseas slacken. Economists at Barclays Plc and Morgan Stanley were among those raising fourth-quarter U.S. gross domestic product forecasts as a result.

“Growth right now is just really strong, and the U.S. is on pretty solid footing,” said Michael Gapen, the New York-based chief U.S. economist at Barclays, who raised the tracking estimate for the quarter’s GDP to a 3.5 percent annualized rate after the trade report from 2.7 percent.

The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 69 economists projected a November trade gap of $42 billion. Estimates ranged from deficits of $39 billion to $43.9 billion.