The monthly jobs report from the world’s largest economy, the US of A, will be out in about 20 minutes. The official consensus seems to be for 155,000 new jobs created in February. Here’s what some of the smart guys on Wall Street expect:
Morgan Stanley: “Our forecast for payrolls is +135,000, building in some temporary weather drag that doesn’t seem to be in the Bloomberg consensus forecast of +165,000. It appears pretty clear after the past two days that the market has moved to position for an upside surprise in Friday’s report.”
Goldman Sachs: “We forecast a gain of 150k payroll jobs in February (vs. consensus +165k), similar to the 157k increase seen in January. This rate of payrolls growth is consistent with a moderate rate of economic expansion but is not sufficient to bring down the unemployment rate rapidly. The labor market series that we normally track as potential leading indicators for payrolls were fairly mixed in February, leaving us comfortable with our call for similar job growth to last month.”
Societe Generale: “We expect the Bureau of Labor Statistics to report that the employment situation improved markedly in February. The decline in the mean number of persons filing initial claims for unemployment insurance over the five weeks heading into last month’s establishment survey period, along with a sizable reduction in regular state benefit recipients between canvasses, suggests that nonfarm payrolls expanded by 225,000, besting the 200,000 average posted over the prior three-month span.”