Market participants now have the awaited data from the U.S. Labor Department on February unemployment and payrolls. The official unemployment rate came in at 8.3%. The target from Bloomberg and other sources on the official unemployment rate to be 8.3%.
As far as non-farm payrolls, those grew by a reading of 227,00 for the month of February. Bloomberg had a consensus estimate of 204,000 for non-farm payrolls and CNBC cited a consensus in non-farm payrolls figure of 210,000 for its estimate.
The number of total private sector payrolls, which kicks out government workers, came in at 233,000 for February versus the Bloomberg consensus estimate of 220,000. The preliminary report in January was 257,000.
Average hourly earnings came in at +0.1% versus the Bloomberg count of +0.2%.
Today’s data is good, but probably not enough alone to drive a powerful day unless the positive revisions (which are not listed here) are included in the above-consensus data.
JON C. OGG
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