Expectations for the Nonfarm payroll headline are unchanged at an average (mean) forecast of 180,000. Just out of interest I took the forecast of the top five rankings economists on the Bloomberg survey (the survey size is 93 in total) and came up with an average of 179,500, so I guess 180K is pretty much the expected …
What to look out for in the other important figures with this release:
- Watch for revisions to past data
- September unemployment rate is expected to be unchanged from August at 7.3%
- Average hourly earnings are expected to be +0.2% m/m (+0.2% was the prior also)
- Average Weekly Hours is expected to be unchanged at 34.5 hours
- Watch for the participation rate – this will impact on the unemployment result (of course) – prior was at 63.2%
Another thing to watch out for, after the release, is the narrative that this is “old data” … which, of course, it is. Adam wrote earlier that:
What normally makes non-farm payrolls such a market mover is that it’s nearly a real-time data point, the jobs numbers are out a few days after the month ends.
But, today, on NFP Tuesday, the data is out about three weeks late, so if it prints away from expectations the reaction may very well be that it is ‘old data’.
–
Also – be sure to check out this detailed piece on the NFP from Greg Michalowski
