TD Eyes -200k Payrolls; RBC Sees +150k

TD eyes a -200k reading Friday, near the bottom of Bloomberg consensus, with the recovery in jobs "probably temporarily interrupted" by the Omicron wave.

• From a methodological standpoint TD assumes "that most workers isolating/quarantining received at least some pay, and thus will still be counted in the January payrolls figures, but the degree of disruption reflected in the Household Pulse Survey and Homebase data... raises the risk that payrolls will be down by even more than in our -200k estimate".
• They see the unemployment rate edging higher by 0.1pp to 4.0%.
• RBC sees +150k (including +140k private) payrolls Friday, as "moderation will remain a key theme among some key categories including leisure/hospitality, retail and government." They also see the dynamic of strong household survey numbers continuing as it's a bit "easier" to be included as employed. They also see the unemployment rate dipping 0.1pp to 3.8%.
• Note: both of these previews were written prior to the weak ADP report Wednesday.