CNN/Money One for credit card only hard offer form at $9.95 One for risk-free form at $14.95 w/ $9.95 upsell  
Commentary > HaysWire
graphic
3 ...2 ...1 ... jobs report!
Ready for a big jobs number? Well, there's some backpedaling going on, but no worries.
January 6, 2005: 2:12 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - We're in the countdown to the December jobs report, always a big market focus and often a big market mover.

 QUICK VOTE  
What's the outlook for U.S. job growth in 2005?
  Strong
  Modest
  Little change
  Decline

   View results

The consensus forecast is for payrolls to rise 175,000, which would be a welcome move up from November's 112,000 new jobs. That consensus forecast isn't too much of a stretch, because it's basically the average monthly jobs growth number over the past year or so.

Even so, a lot of economists are scaling back their forecasts, saying the number could be weaker.

One reason, this week's December ISM manufacturing survey showed a pullback in jobs. That could be a harbinger of a weaker jobs number. Today's weekly jobless claims shouldn't affect forecasts too much because, one, there is only a rough correlation between claims and payrolls, and two, the government's survey was taken in the middle of the month, a couple of weeks before the latest claims were filed.

Economists at Deutsche Bank point out that the "consensus" has overestimated payrolls in 5 of past 6 months by an average of 98,000, another reason why Wall Street might be leaning now toward a less robust jobs increase.

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Federal Reserve
Unemployment
Kathleen Hays
Manage alerts | What is this?

In any case a weaker number may not have much impact, in part because people are already backpedaling. Another more important buffer could be that the Federal Reserve in the minutes of its December meeting, released two days ago, showed a bit more concern about inflation and no worries about the meager job gains of November. So a weak jobs report would probably not change expectations of more Fed rate hikes.

On the other hand, if the jobs numbers are a lot stronger for some reason, this could have a big market impact, not only because it's not expected but also because it would add fuel the fire of those arguing the Fed is getting ready to pick up the pace of rate-hiking this year.  Top of page


Kathleen Hays is economics correspondent for CNN and contributes to Lou Dobbs Tonight.




  More on COMMENTARY
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus rally
Thanks for nothing, Corporate America
It's not just the economy, stupid
  TODAY'S TOP STORIES
7 things to know before the bell
SoftBank and Toyota want driverless cars to change the world
Aston Martin falls 5% in its London IPO




graphic graphic

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.