Things to Watch for the U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls Report

After September’s FOMC meeting that ended with unchanged interest rates, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said that interest rate hike in 2015 is still on the table if employment maximize and inflation rate picks up towards Fed’s target. These hawkish comments turn the attention on today’s Non-Farm Payrolls report three-and-a-half-weeks before the next FOMC meeting in October. The headline of the employment report, the NFP number, is forecasted to show that the U.S. economy added more than 200K jobs in September, specifically 203k vs 173k before.

US Non Farm Payrolls

The labour market faced a weak month in August, only 173k people employed, far below the three month average and the average of the twelve last months of 216k and 243k respectively. However, the aforementioned averages, which are more reliable indications from the monthly figures, as they remove temporary fluctuations, are well above 200k indicating a healthy economy. In August, the education and health services added the larger number of jobs while the Manufacturing, Mining and Logging lost jobs.

Employment in Total Non Farm

Currently, the unemployment rate stands at a more than 7-year low at 5.1% and the market expects it to remain the same. The average hourly wages are growing slowly but steadily the last couple of years, overpassing US $10.50 per hour. At September’s job report economists expect hourly earnings to have increased by 0.2%, a slower pace than in August that grew by 0.3%…more

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