Nonfarm Payrolls expected to show US labor market remained weak in December
- Nonfarm Payrolls are expected to rise by 60,000 in December after the 64,000 increase recorded in November.
- The Unemployment Rate is seen edging lower to 4.5% from 4.6%.
- The labor market data could influence the market pricing of the Fed’s policy outlook.
The United States (US) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) data for December on Friday at 13:30 GMT.
The US Dollar (USD) will likely experience heightened volatility as the employment report could provide key clues about how the Federal Reserve (Fed) will approach policy-making in the new year.
What to expect from the next Nonfarm Payrolls report?
Economists expect Nonfarm Payrolls to rise by 60,000 in December following the 64,000 increase recorded in November. In this period, the Unemployment Rate is seen edging lower to 4.5% from 4.6%, while the annual wage inflation, as measured by the change in the average hourly earnings, is forecast to tick up to 3.6% from 3.5%.
The monthly report published by the Automatic Data Processing (ADP) showed that private sector payrolls rose by 41,000 in December following the 29,000 decline recorded in November. Additionally, the Employment Index of the Institute for Supply Management’s Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) climbed to 52 after staying in contraction territory, below 50, for six consecutive months.
Previewing the employment report, TD Securities analysts said: “We look for job gains to stabilize at around the 50k mark over the last two months, with private payrolls printing a 50k gain in December as the government likely shed 10k jobs over the same period.”
“We also expect the unemployment rate to normalize to 4.5% after seeing a shutdown-driven jump to 4.6% in November. Avg. hourly earnings likely rose 0.3% m/m and 3.6% y/y,” they added.
