2026-02-11 13:17:00
It’s not Friday yet but if it feels that way, it’s because we’re minutes away from the non-farm payrolls report.
It’s a big one as the Federal Reserve circles the jobs market as a key metric in whether it will cut rates further or hold them here. The data over the past week hasn’t been encouraging with misses in ADP, ISM services, initial jobless claims and JOLTS.
The best preview you can read in the final minutes before the release is right here: January non-farm payrolls by the numbers. The consensus is high
One thing I was looking out for late yesterday was some kind of indication from the White House about what the report will look like but we didn’t get it. Read into that whatever you like but remember that Trump leaked the non-farm payrolls report last month. So even a big miss could just be a reflecting of him getting his wrist slapped for that.
In that preview, I didn’t get too deep into the revisions that are coming but those will be meaningful. There are two things happening. The first is the annual rebenchmarking, which Powell estimated would lower payrolls up to March 2025 by 600K jobs (others see number close to 720K). Secondly, there is a revision to the birth-death model for the remainder of the year and that could also lead to a large downward revision.
The number that’s going to best capture all of this is a simple one: The unemployment rate. It was at 4.4% in the December report and it’s going to be key but watch the participation rate as well, as it was previously at 62.4%. A drop in participation combined with a flat unemployment rate is an economic negative.
The cleanest mover on non-farm payrolls is usually USD/JPY but that pair is getting beaten down this week after the Japanese election so USD/CHF might be the place to watch, along with gold.
The data is out at the bottom of the hour: 8:30 am ET.
non-farm payrolls, monthly
