From The Desk Of Laura Wheeler

Last month saw a large miss by most forecasters, with the most accurate being FAO Economics (+120k NFP, +150k private). This month they are looking for +210k NFP, +220k private, again solidly above consensus. So far this year, the market consensus has overestimated payrolls six times (by an average of just under 52k), and underestimated four times (by an average of a little over 60k). The average miss has been a relatively small +7k, though with considerable deviation.

The November Employment Report is released at 8:30 AM tomorrow. The consensus is for an increase of 143,000 payroll jobs in November, and for the unemployment rate to stay steady at 9.6%.    

1)      Non-Farm Payrolls – Plus 143K

2)      Private Payrolls – Plus 155K

3)      Unemployment Rate – 9.6%

4)      Hourly Earnings – Plus .2

5)      Average Workweek – 34.3 hours

Weekly claims over the last four weeks averaged 431,000. Although elevated, this is better than the October average claims of 456,500.    Our Bias for tomorrow is slightly higher NFP at +150K, and we agree with the masses on the employment rate staying at 9.6%, but don’t be surprised if a higher participation rate pushes us to 9.7%.  Here’s what others are saying…

1)      Moody’s – Plus 145K at 9.6%

2)      Barclays – Plus 170K at 9.7%

3)      UBS – Plus 150K at 9.5%

4)      RBS – Plus 145K at 9.6%

5)      JPMorgan – Plus 170K at 9.6%