LinkUp Forecasting Another Strong Jobs Report for July With Job Gains of 199,000

With everyone (including us) anxiously waiting for the bad news to arrive, July's strong jobs report will likely enflame, in equal measure across the divide, excessive jubilation and consternation

As has been the case since our quant team at GlobalData upgraded our non-farm payroll forecasting model earlier this year (much to our delight as the chart below indicates, with accurate calls relative to consensus in 4 of 6 initial BLS release this year), we are publishing our NFP forecast here, as always going forward, on Tuesday of Jobs Week (we’ll be publishing it to our Macro Compass clients on Monday of Jobs Week).

Based on our data and the forecast model, we are forecasting a net gain of 199,000 jobs for Fridays’s non-farm payroll report for July despite the fact that labor demand in our mid-month time series (the LinkUp data component input into our NFP forecast model) fell in July for the 3rd straight month.

With the severe lack of clarity around the strength of U.S. economy at the moment, combined with the intensity of focus on the job market as they key driver to pretty much everything, always, we expect Friday’s number, particularly relative to consensus estimates of a net gain of 110,000 jobs, to enflame, in equal measure across the divide, excessive amounts of consternation and jubilation.

On that score, we’ll have plenty to say in our commentary that we’ll publish following Friday’s release about the U.S. job market, what we’re seeing in our data, our perspective on job market equilibrium and what the imbalance means for the economy for the remainder of the year.

For now, however, we look forward to Friday’s fireworks.