Each and every month the markets get to digest new unemployment and payrolls data. While the U.S. Labor Department’s formal report called the Employment Situation is out at 8:30 a.m. each first Friday of the month, there are many reports that aim to telegraph the direction of this ahead of time. The good news for this month is that the market is expecting more positive data. We just hope that the sequestration effects and other ongoing policy measures did not mute things too much.
On Wednesday we have seen that TrimTabs Investment Research estimated that job growth for March was 156,000. That is up from its 100,000 job growth February estimate, but the report shows that actual job growth is significantly weaker than the Labor Department reported in the first quarter and not enough to reduce the rate of unemployment.
At 8:15 a.m. comes the ADP Employment Report, and that is expected to by 205,000 in new payrolls.
On Friday we get the formal report, and those estimates are 193,000 in nonfarm payrolls, but that includes government workers. The private sector payrolls are expected to have grown by 200,000, and the formal unemployment rate is expected to come in flat month-over-month at 7.7%.
It is always interesting when you see public sources accusing data of not looking quite as it seems. Jack Welch called the numbers a blatant lie ahead of the election. TrimTabs did not quite go that far, but that are warning that the job growth so far has been overreported.
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