December Jobs Report And Weekly Initial Jobless Claims Could Be Good Omens For Economy

December Jobs Report

According to Bloomberg, the following data sets can be expected:

• Non-farm payrolls to rise 151,000 to 210,000 from November's level.
• Unemployment to read between 4.6 percent to 4.8 percent.
• Private payrolls to rise 136,000 to 200,000 from November's level.
• Average hourly earnings to rise 0.2 percent to 0.4 percent from November's level.
• Average workweek for all employees to fall between 34.4 hours and 35.5 hours.

Initial Jobless Claims

Ahead of Friday's job report is the release of initial jobless claims.

Unlike the once-a-month employment report, the weekly initial jobless claims report shows the number of Americans who filed for unemployment insurance for the first time in the prior week.

According to Bloomberg, new initial jobless claims are expected to fall in a range of 255,000 to 262,000. Last week's readings fell 10,000 to 265,000, so a continued trend of falling claims serves as an encouraging sign for the economy.

The prior week's reading on December 22 showed that initial jobless claims rose to a six-month high to 275,000.