Friday April 1 includes the US labour market data and being the first day of the month means some of the sector reports that normally feed into forecasters' estimates will not be released until later. Therefore, there may be a greater than usual uncertainty in markets as the release time approaches. Otherwise, the March 28 week data releases may serve only to flesh out what is already known for consumer confidence, housing and manufacturing. The BLS data on March unemployment and payrolls is set for Friday. Early expectations for non-farm payrolls centre near a 200,000 gain, but the range between the low and high forecasts is wide which suggest a lot of uncertainty. Estimates for the unemployment rate are closely clustered near 8.9% within a range of 8.8% to 9.0%. Weekly initial jobless claims have been trending lower, but that only indicates fewer layoffs and not necessarily more hiring. Decreases in continuing claims may be due to some beneficiaries finding jobs, but there are some who are simply running out of benefits. The implications for the unemployment rate are that the decreases in claims in the last three months are no fluke. While the pace of improvement to the unemployment rate may slow, it should still continue to inch lower. Initial claims for the week ended March 26 on Thursday will include the annual revisions when the ETA introduces the new seasonal adjustment factors for 2011. The week-to-week levels may be somewhat different, but the fundamentals will be the same.
The only piece of data during the week that has the potential to alter the outlook for most employment forecasts is the ADP National Employment Report on Wednesday. The report has had a few big misses in the last few months, but...Read more