Watchful eyes will be on the US CPI report on Thursday this week but before we get to that, markets might have something to chew at later today. The BLS is releasing its preliminary benchmark revision to US jobs, covering the 12-month period through to March 2025. And everyone is expecting it to reflect a major downwards revision to labour market data.
We've already gotten confirmation of the labour market slowing down further on Friday last week. And the estimates for today's revision is that hiring could be 700,000 to 800,000 jobs lower than first reported.
If thereabouts, it could indicate that the average monthly job growth in the US for last year was only roughly 100,000 per month instead of 165,000 that was previously reported. That's a marked change in seeing how "healthy" the labour market was before this, as compared to the average of 29,000 jobs during the past three months from June to August.
For some added context, this particular revision today is the annual one based on a fresh batch of data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. So, this is supposed to add as another layer of accuracy towards the labour market data - building on the monthly revisions of course.
This same report last year saw 818,000 less jobs added in the 12-motnh period through to March 2024. And at the time, it was already a big deal in telling markets that the labour market was already showing signs of cracking.
So, what will today's number tell us with nearly three rate cuts priced in? Will we see traders make a stronger push for 50 bps after this and before the inflation data?
