US: Nonfarm payrolls to rise by 175k in Dec - Barclays

The Barclays Research Team is out with yet another preview, this time on the US labor market report due to be released this Friday at 1330 GMT.

Key Quotes:

Nonfarm payrolls rebounded strongly in October and November following the hurricane-disrupted readings in August and September.

Incoming data on labor markets, including initial and continuing claims, point to another month of solid employment growth.

We expect nonfarm payrolls to rise by 175k, in line with the year-to-date monthly average, and for private sector payrolls to rise by 170k.

We look for the unemployment rate to decline by 0.1pp to 4.0%,

For average hourly earnings to rise by 0.3% m/m and 2.5% y/y.

For average weekly hours to hold steady at 34.5.