US Nonfarm Payrolls to climb higher
While we are seeing improvements in most sectors of the US economy, the labour market has reacted with extreme sluggishness to the pick-up in activity. The unemployment rate still hovers around 9.5 percent and the monthly gains in employment are still only just about enough to keep unemployment steady. We do look for an improvement in January compared to the disappointment of December, when only 103K new net payrolls were added. Today we aim higher and look for 150K increase in overall payrolls, resulting in a slight uptick in the unemployment rate of 0.5 percent, from 9.4 percent a month ago .
The good news about the U.S. economy continued throughout January with the manufacturing sector powering even higher to 60.8 (the highest in the current expansion) according to the most recent ISM Manufacturing survey. The sister survey for the rest of the economy is not far behind though wih a reading of 59.4, the highest since August 2005! The employment indices in these two surveys were also strong and so too was the ADP, though its track record has not been impressive of late.
