All eyes are supposed to be watching the U.S. Labor Department’s key unemployment and payrolls report due this coming Friday morning. Unfortunately, the pre-payrolls views offered by ADP and by TrimTabs likely will mute at least some of the more aggressive payrolls estimates from economists. ADP is more widely followed than TrimTabs, so it has been given attention first.

ADP’s National Employment Report indicated that private sector payrolls increased by 241,000 jobs in December over November. ADP’s report is in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, and it aims to measure the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally adjusted basis.

ADP’s breakdown is as follows:

• Small businesses added 106,000 jobs.
• Medium businesses added 70,000 jobs.
• Large businesses added 66,000 jobs.

TrimTabs reported that the U.S. economy added 210,000 to 240,000 jobs in December. If this turns out to be accurate, it is the lowest payrolls growth in three months and a sharp decrease from the 306,000 jobs that were added in November. TrimTabs explained that it is using a range rather than a single figure for its December estimate because the timing of year-end bonus payments makes its analysis of withholdings more challenging than usual.

TrimTabs’ employment estimates are based on analysis of daily income tax deposits to the U.S. Treasury from the paychecks of the 141 million U.S. workers subject to withholding. The report said:

The conventional wisdom is that the U.S. economy is powering ahead despite global headwinds, but employment growth last month was the lowest in three months.

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Ahead of Friday’s key Employment Situation report, we will see the weekly jobless claims report on Thursday. Bloomberg has estimates of 290,000 claims, versus some 298,000 reported a week ago. Friday’s key economic estimates from Bloomberg for the month of December are as follows:

• Unemployment: 5.7% (versus 5.8% in November)
• Nonfarm payrolls: 245,000 (versus 321,000 in November)
• Private sector payrolls: 238,000 (versus 314,000 in November)
• Average hourly earnings: +0.2% (versus +0.4% in November)
• Average workweek: 34.6 hours (same as November)

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