MNI US Payrolls Preview: Better Late Than Never

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Executive Summary

• The long-awaited nonfarm payrolls report for September will be released on Thursday at 0830ET.
• Having been collected prior to the government shutdown, this could be the last “conventional” payrolls release of the year with potential for a combined report covering October and November in December.
• Nearly all primary dealer analysts have stuck with their original estimates, for a median estimate of 60k nonfarm payrolls growth, consistent with the 58k in the broader Bloomberg survey.
• The unemployment rate should be watched particularly closely not least before there’s a good chance there won’t be an unemployment rate estimate for October. It’s seen holding at 4.3% with various trackers pointing to very marginal deterioration on the month.
• Patient Fedspeak has seen a large hawkish adjustment at the front-end in recent weeks, with only ~10bp of cuts priced for the Dec 9-10 FOMC meeting vs 22bp prior to Powell’s press conference late last month.
• There’s a chance we won’t have another payrolls report released prior to this December meeting.