The firm expects a headline print of 160k later today
While also indicating that market participants should pay as much attention to wages data as the non-farm payrolls headline reading:
"In terms of expectations both our economists and the consensus peg payrolls at 160k. From the Fed's perspective, the year-over-year trend in private employment is more important as this needs to outpace the trend in labor force growth in order to keep downward pressure on the unemployment rate.As Cleveland Fed President Mester reminded us recently, monthly payroll gains in the 75k - 120k range would still be consistent with the underlying trend in overall output growth.As for the rest of the report, the consensus expects the unemployment rate to hold steady at 3.6%, earnings to rise +0.3% mom and hours to hold at 34.4. Our economists also expect earnings to rise +0.3% which should result in a one-tenth increase in the year-over-year rate to +3.2%, however they do expect hours to tick up to 34.5."
You can check out more previews that we posted earlier on the site here. I'll also put up a more detailed preview post with some of my thoughts later on in the session.