PIG TODAY-Preview: What To Expect From NFP? - Views From 10 Major Banks

Credit Agricole: Our US economist looks for firm US economic data this week with NFP predicted to rise by 185K and the unemployment rate to tick upward to 4.7%

Goldman: We are in line with consensus across the board for payrolls on Friday, where we expect 180k on the headline and the unemployment rate to tick up to 4.7%.

UBS: UBS forecasts employment growth in December to be little changed from its November pace, with payrolls up 170k (prev. 178k), private payrolls up 160k (prev. 156k), and no change in the unemployment rate (4.6%) after November's drop. We think the swing from unusually warm weather in Oct.-Nov. to typically colder temperatures in Dec. has held back payrolls in the latter month.

Danske: We estimate non-farm payrolls increased by 170,000 in December in line with the recent trend and more or less in line with the consensus of 178,000. We estimate private services was the main contributor to job growth with 150,000 new jobs. After four months in decline, we estimate manufacturing employment was unchanged in December as manufacturing activity has recovered. Construction employment probably increased 8,000 in December. We estimate the unemployment rate rose to 4.7% and that average hourly earnings increased 0.2% m/m, implying a small increase in the wage growth rate of 2.6% y/y.

BofA Merrill: We look for a trend-like 175,000 gain in nonfarm payrolls. We expect 170,000 of this gain to come from the private sector and only 5,000 to come from the government sector. We think there is scope for the labor force participation rate to inch back up to 62.8% from 62.7%, and as a result, for the unemployment rate to move back up towards 4.8%. Smoothing through the volatility of wage growth in the past couple of months, we look for average hourly earnings to gain a trend-like 0.2% mom after a 0.1% mom contraction in November. This would push the year-over-year rate up to a healthier 2.7% from 2.5%.

Nomura: We forecast that nonfarm payrolls increased by 175k in December, following a steady gain of 178k in November. We expect that private payrolls gained 170k, implying that the public sector added 5k workers to its payrolls. Incoming business and consumer surveys suggest healthy hiring and job market conditions. In addition, initial and continuing claims data imply that involuntary layoffs remain quite low and firms are eager to retain workers. On the manufacturing sector, payrolls have declined for four consecutive months but the declines have slowed in recent readings. Given the better optimism from manufacturers, we expect manufacturing payrolls to remain unchanged in December. In addition, we expect that unemployment rate increased slightly to 4.7% in December following a 0.3pp decline to 4.6% in November.

Barclays: For the December employment report, we look for nonfarm payrolls to rise by 175k. We expect 165k of these gains to come from the private sector – particularly service-providing employers – with government payrolls adding the remaining 10k. Initial and continuing jobless claims have continued to trend lower, bolstering our confidence that labor demand remains solid. We expect the unemployment rate to rise 0.1pp to 4.7%.

SEB: We forecast 190k for total payroll growth, 180k on private payrolls, 4.7% on the unemployment rate, and 0.3% on average hourly earnings.

CIBC: Look for non-farm payrolls to have increased by 165K during the final month of 2016, which is in line with our medium-term forecast for average monthly employment gains. While that’s a bit cooler than the recent trend, it’s still well ahead of the roughly 100K needed to keep pace with population growth. The unemployment rate will, however, move a couple of ticks higher on the back of a rebound in labour force participation. Wage increases should also bounce back into positive territory, after declining in November for the first time in almost a year.

UOB: The key US data focus falls on Friday (6 Jan) when we get the US December Labor report with the focus on non-farm payrolls (which we expect to surprise higher at 250,000 from November’s 178,000 and the unemployment rate (which also could ease lower to 4.5% from 4.6% in Nov.

Source: efxnews.com