MNI BRIEF: Fed Jobs Model Sees Nearly 2M Jobs in March

U.S. payrolls from mid-February to mid-March may have increased by as much as 1.67 million, St. Louis Fed economist Max Dvorkin told MNI. That's despite a "modest slowdown in the evolution of employment in mid-March, most likely related to spring break."

On the lower end, Dvorkin's model, which synthesizes high frequency data from employee scheduling software companies Homebase and Kronos, predicts a monthly payrolls gain of 843,000, which would still be the largest one-month gain since August.

Dvorkin's coincident indices have forecast official jobs numbers from the BLS reasonably well through the pandemic, but he cautioned that the President's Day holiday in February may have skewed his March forecasts higher, while any "early" spring break may bias down. Back in January, Dvorkin pointed to an upside gain of just over 1 million jobs, when the eventual outcome was revised decline of more than 300,000 jobs.