The jobs report Wednesday will give markets a lot to consider, as investors parse through fresh data and a batch of revisions.
Economists expect that January’s nonfarm payrolls report will show growth that was nil or not much better during the month. On top of that, annual revisions also could reveal that the U.S. economy going back to early 2024 had generated few if any net jobs, casting further doubt on the health of the labor market.
“I think zero would be the forecast,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The consensus is probably around 50,000. Anything around zero just shows you how fragile things are, just very weak. This is all happening with no layoffs, but layoffs are going to pick up. I think we could get job losses here pretty soon.”
The payrolls report will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET. It was delayed five days due to the brief government shutdown.
Officially, the Dow Jones consensus forecast is calling for payroll gains of 55,000, a number that has been trending lower and would come after a December increase of 50,000. That is expected to be good enough to keep the unemployment rate at a still-low 4.4%, with annual wage gains of 3.7%.
