Preview: December non-farm payrolls by the numbers

<p>What's expected:</p><ul><li>Consensus estimate +180K (range +120 to +290K)</li><li>Private +155K vs +164K prior</li><li><a href="https://www.forexlive.com/news/us-november-non-farm-payrolls-216k-vs-170k-expected-20240105/" target="_blank" rel="follow">November </a>+216K</li><li>Unemployment rate consensus estimate: 3.8% vs 3.7% prior</li><li>Participation rate: 62.5% prior</li><li>Prior underemployment U6 7.1%</li><li>Avg hourly earnings y/y exp +4.1% y/y vs +4.1% prior</li><li>Avg hourly earnings m/m exp +0.3% vs +0.4% prior</li><li>Avg weekly hours exp 34.3 vs 34.3 prior</li></ul><p>December jobs so far:</p><ul><li>ADP report +107K vs +150K expected and +158K prior</li><li>ISM services employment not yet released</li><li>ISM manufacturing employment 47.1 vs 47.5 prior</li><li>Challenger Job Cuts 82,307 vs 34,817 — 10-month high</li><li>Philly employment +0.8 vs +4.0 prior</li><li>Empire employment -6.9 vs -8.4 prior</li><li>Initial jobless claims survey week 189K vs 2205K last month (was the lowest since Sept 2022)</li></ul><p>On thing I will be watching for in this report is revisions. The two-month net revision in the November report was -71K and that followed a -35K revision in the prior report. There is a line of thinking that revisions tell you as much about the underlying economy as the headline, which can be volatile, especially in January which is subject to <a href="https://www.forexlive.com/news/the-january-us-non-farm-payrolls-report-isnt-about-jobs-its-about-job-losses-20240126/" target="_blank" rel="follow">huge seasonal adjustments</a>.</p><p>According to BMO, The headline payrolls print comes in below estimates 52% of
the time and beats 48% of the time by 55k and 129k, respectively, on average. On the unemployment rate, 45% of previous unemployment reads in January have been lower-than-expected, 29% have
been higher-than-estimates, and 26% have matched forecast.</p><p> vs </p>

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