Investing.com – With the U.S. labor market widely considered to be at, or near, full employment by analysts and Federal Reserve (Fed) officials alike, the March employment report released on Friday may see a lackluster reaction in markets even if the data ends up weaker than expected.
The U.S. Labor Department will release its report at 8:30AM ET (12:30GMT) on Friday.
The consensus forecast is that the data will show jobs growth of 180,000, following an increase of 235,000 in February.
The unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 4.7%, while average hourly earnings are expected to rise 0.2% after gaining the same amount a month earlier.
Strong ADP report may tilt risks to the upside
A strong private payrolls number out Wednesday from payroll processer ADP showed that the U.S. created 236,000 jobs last month may have increased the pressure for the data to beat consensus.
Morgan Stanley increased its own forecast for jobs creation by 45,000 payrolls to 195,000 due to the ADP employment change.
These experts highlighted that ADP tends to miss by about 53,000 with a tendency to overstate the government data.
They admitted that the payroll processer introduced some new methodologies in November, but insisted it was too early to tell whether that has improved its predictive ability.
Still, it “correctly flagged upside risks last month in estimating a 298,000 gain in private sector jobs versus the actual 227,000 outcome”, they pointed out.
Weak jobs report may not impact outlook
Even if the ADP numbers once again fail to predict the government data, most experts agreed that, barring a huge miss, both markets and the Fed could look through any weakness.
"Employment is always a focus, but my guess is it's going to be soft, relative to trend because of the weather, and nobody's going to care because it's a weather story if it's weak," Deutsche Bank economist Joseph LaVorgna said.
ING economists also expected the boost in construction jobs from warmer weather in February to be offset by a correction in March and they downplayed the impact on monetary policy:
“It would have to be dreadful to ruffle feathers at the Fed,” they proclaimed.
For the last few months, most experts have recommended to look past the headline numbers and to focus on wage inflation in order to gauge the slack remaining in the labor market.
The theory is that the increase in wages will be the major factor to put upward pressure on prices as salaries become more resilient and workers begin to spend.
Regardless, Danske Bank expects “jobs growth (…) to continue at solid levels in coming months, which should be sufficient to tighten the labor market further.”
“Even if we get a disappointing jobs report for March, we believe that Fed will be relatively calm about the state of the labor market,” these economists said.
Markets are currently pricing in the odds for the next rate hike in June at around 59%, according to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
However, despite several recent calls from analysts that a second hike could come in September ahead of the announcement for balance sheet normalization in December, Fed fund futures put the chance of a second move in September at only 32%.
Following the release of the employment data, New York Fed president William Dudley will be the first official scheduled that could comment on the numbers. Although Dudley is scheduled to speak on financial regulation and reform at 12:15PM ET (16:15GMT), the appearance will include a Q&A.
Markets currently have to wait until Monday to quiz Fed chair Janet Yellen on her outlook for the economy and the future path of monetary policy when she participates in a conversation at the University of Michigan at 4:00PM ET (20:00GMT). According to the organizer, Yellen will respond to questions both from the audience and via Twitter.