With the first week of the month comes the unemployment reports for the previous month. In this case we will be checking the numbers from February as they come in this week. The major unemployment reports that we will be highlighting are the ADP Employment Report, TrimTabs, Weekly Jobless Claims, and finally the Unemployment Situation.
The ADP Employment Report is set to be released Wednesday morning. Bloomberg has a consensus estimate of 220,000 for the month of February. Previously in January, ADP private payroll employment showed slowing job growth to a lower-than-expected 213,000 for private payrolls. The BLS estimate for January private payrolls posted at 267,000.
The TrimTabs unemployment research will also be coming out the same day as ADP. There currently is no estimate for it, but it should provide some insight for what to expect from Friday’s unemployment situation report.
Weekly Jobless Claims will be reported Thursday morning and there is a consensus estimate of 300,000. The previous reading for the week ended February 21, was 313,000 which was unexpectedly up 31,000. The 4-week moving average was up 11,500 to 294,500. Continuing claims for the February 14 week fell 21,000 to 2.401 million.
The Unemployment Situation for February is set to be released Friday morning by The Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bloomberg has consensus estimates compared to the prior readings:
- Nonfarm payrolls expected to be 230,000, lower than the previous level of 257,000
- Unemployment rate is expected to drop by 0.1% to 5.6% for February from 5.7% in January
- Private Payrolls consensus estimate is 230,000 compared to the previous reading of 267,000
- Average hourly earnings are expected to be 0.2%, down from the 0.5% reading in January
- Average workweek is expected to remain unchanged at 34.6 hours
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