NAB Look For Sharp Rebound In Employment

Ahead of today’s labour market report NAB look for “employment to rebound sharply, after January was weighed down by shifting seasonals, with around 70k extra people waiting to begin a job than usual. We made that point after January’s softer than expected employment figures.”

• “Nab pencils in an employment gain of 60k in the month stronger than the consensus for a monthly gain of 50k. In the context of the anticipated rebound, a number noticeably south of the otherwise sizeable gain seen by consensus would be seen as soft.”
• “There is always a large dose of measurement uncertainty around a monthly employment print, but in the context of negative measured employment growth in the past two months, a lack of evident rebound from January would nudge the RBA to downgrade their assessment of the labour market, which they currently see as “a bit less tight than it was a few months ago, but we would still regard it as being tight.” With the catch up in growth we expect in large part coming from people who were measured as waiting to start a job but not in the labour force, we also look for a rebound in the participation rate back to 66.6%, seeing the unemployment rate fall 1 tenth to 3.6%, in line with the consensus.”