The latest read on the health of US employment will be revealed tomorrow morning when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports results for Nonfarm Payrolls, Unemployment and Average Hourly Earnings.
Estimize consensus:
Change in Nonfarm Payrolls: 132K
Unemployment rate: 4.4%
Average Hourly Earnings: 0.3%
We are predicting that nonfarm payrolls come in at 132,000 for September, a number that has dropped precipitously in the last month. Prior to hurricanes that greatly impacted Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, our community had been expecting NFPs to come in at 177k. In the wake of those natural disasters the number has continually been revised downward to the current level as the true impact on US jobs is being realized, with tens of thousands of people now out of work as a result.
Early signs for a weak September jobs report started with increased levels of initial jobless claims the week of September 7. The reading of 298k was the highest number in 2 years, and those numbers remained elevated in the following weeks.
Expectations for unemployment are expected to remain flat at 4.4%. While jobs were lost during the month due to the aforementioned natural disasters, some of those losses were offset by the employment opportunities created by disaster relief and rebuilding efforts. However, judging by the ongoing skilled labor shortage in the US, early reports suggest it has been difficult to find a meaningful number of qualified people to fill those roles.
Average Hourly Earnings are predicted to have a slight increase (0.2 percentage points) to 0.3% from 0.1% last month. This isn’t terribly meaningful, and keeps wage growth in the same low 0.1% – 0.3% range we’ve seen for the entirety of 2017.
This slight increase could be from the tightening labor market as well as the increase in inflation. Analysts are hoping this increase in wages will have a direct effect on the consumer discretionary sector.
