(Bloomberg) -- Economists anticipate a rebound in US hiring in November following devastating hurricanes and a major strike in the previous month.
Nonfarm payrolls probably rose 220,000 last month after a meager 12,000 increase in October, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report due Friday will be the last before the next Federal Reserve’s policy meeting this month. To get a better sense of the underlying trends, investors and economists will likely look at the three-month moving average gain in payrolls. The consensus implies 151,000, a step-down from earlier this year.
“Increased strike activity, hurricanes and seasonal shifts in employment have injected a considerable degree of noise into the jobs data in recent months, making hiring dynamics more difficult to decipher,” said Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY. Smoothing out some of that recent volatility, the data are set to show a “healthy but slowing labor market.”
Deutsche Bank AG and Citigroup Inc. expect the return of those who were unable to work in October to represent some 80,000 of the new jobs created. Bank of America Corp. economists, who are anticipating a 240,000 increase in November payrolls, said the figure will reflect 100,000 in payback, if not more.
Revision Risk
Revisions may also make it harder for economists and policymakers to confidently interpret Friday’s data.
Barclays Plc economists warned about the risk of revisions to the October print after lower-than-usual response rates that month.
“The range of potential prints for November payrolls is unusually wide, as the chance of October’s first estimate being revised materially is much higher than normal,” according to Pantheon Macroeconomics economists led by Samuel Tombs.
Holiday Staffing
A late Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year may mean fewer retail workers were hired during the report’s survey period, which was the week of Nov. 11. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s David Mericle estimated the late start of the shopping season may have reduced retail payrolls by 15,000.
“Retailers have reported the second-lowest holiday staffing plans since 2009,” said EY’s Boussour. “We expect the pickup in seasonal hiring will be more muted, leading the seasonal factors to overcompensate on the downside.”
Jobless Rate
The median forecast shows the unemployment unchanged at 4.1%. But several economists are seeing an uptick to 4.2%.
“The unemployment rate is likely to tick up as laid-off workers and new entrants to the labor market struggle to find jobs,” Bloomberg Economics forecasters wrote Thursday. “We believe the true underlying pace of monthly job creation is barely positive — well below the pace need to stabilize the unemployment rate.”
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
