March non-farm payrolls preview by the numbers: Sentiment is bad but what about hiring?

• Consensus estimate +135K
• Estimate range +50K to +185K
• February was +151K
• Private consensus +135K versus +151K prior
• Unemployment rate consensus estimate 4.1% versus 4.1% prior
• Prior unrounded unemployment rate 4.1396%
• Prior participation rate 62.4%
• Prior underemployment U6 8.0%
• Avg hourly earnings y/y exp +3.9% versus +4.0% prior
• Avg hourly earnings m/m exp +0.3% versus +0.3% prior
• Avg weekly hours exp 34.2 versus 34.1 prior

Numbers released so far this month:

• ADP report +155K versus +84K prior
• ISM services employment 46.2 vs 53.9 prior
• ISM manufacturing employment 44.7 vs 47.6 prior
• Challenger job cuts 275.2k vs 172.0k prior
• Philly employment +19.7 vs +5.3 prior
• Empire employment -4.1 vs -3.6 prior
• Initial jobless claims survey week 225K vs 219K prior

The strongest argument for a good number in March is that February jobs (particularly in leisure & hospitality) were depressed by poor weather.

Seasonally, BMO reports that that the unemployment rate tends to run low but the headline also tends to run low. Historic data shows 42% of previous unemployment reads in March have been lower-than-expected, 31% have been higher-than-
estimates, and 27% have matched the consensus. The headline payrolls print is seasonally soft in February, coming in below estimates 56% of the time and beating
44% of the time, by 73k and 64k, respectively, on average.

This would not be a good time for a big miss.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.