Investing.com — The latest non-farm payroll data was reported on Friday, with unemployment falling to 4.1% and 256,000 payroll gains. Here’s how Wall Street analysts reacted:
Evercore ISI: “A quite strong report. But it will be somewhat discounted as it appears recoveries from hurricanes and Boeing (NYSE:BA) strike account for much of the upside surprise. We estimate +78K and +101K of the job gain in November and December was from the hurricane recovery, respectively.”
JPMorgan: “After only reluctantly cutting last month, we think it would take a very bad set of jobs reports to get the Committee easing again by March, and, so, we now see the next cut in June followed by a final one in September.”
Jefferies: “Overall, we think it is a bit dangerous to put too much stock in December payroll data given seasonal volatility and the potential for revisions in coming months. Next (LON:NXT) month’s report will reflect annual revisions to the survey data and then in March, the benchmark revisions will be released. That said, it is hard to say anything negative about the details of this report.”
William Blair: “The overstatement of the payroll data is the result of the BLS overestimating the amount of new firm creations over the period. It also suggests that the data since then (from March 2024) has been similarly overstated, perhaps as much as 50,000-100,000 per month.”
ING: “Yet another upside surprise on US jobs numbers will intensify the belief that Federal Reserve officials are under no pressure to cut interest rates in the near term. We will get the benchmark jobs revisions next month, which could change the story, but in an environment of sticky inflation the risks are increasingly skewed towards an extended pause from the Fed.”