¡Esta noche a las 8:30! La primera nómina no agrícola bajo el fuego de Oriente Medio: ¿la Reserva Federal optará por recortar o subir las tasas?

① The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release March non-farm employment data at 8:30 p.m. Beijing time tonight; ② As the first U.S. non-farm report to cover the impact of fighting in the Middle East, investors will undoubtedly scrutinize the employment report’s detailed data to assess the specific path of interest rates the Federal Reserve may take later this year.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release March non-farm employment data at 8:30 p.m. Beijing time tonight. As the first U.S. non-farm report to cover the impact of fighting in the Middle East, investors will undoubtedly scrutinize the employment report’s detailed data to assess the specific path of interest rates the Federal Reserve may take later this year.

值得一提的是，由于耶稣受难日假期，美股市场今晚将休市，因此非农数据发布的更多影响可能要到下周一才能充分显现。当然，外汇和债券市场今晚在非农数据出炉时仍将处于正常交易中，在流动性偏低的假日氛围下，债汇市场的交易员可能更需提防市场波动被放大。

How is the market expecting tonight’s non-farm to perform?

According to economists surveyed by the media, the number of new non-farm payroll jobs added in the U.S. in March is expected to reach 60k, reversing the unexpected drop of 95k jobs in February due to large-scale strikes by medical personnel.

If the data meet expectations, this monthly increase will be broadly in line with last year’s March level, and may be enough to reach the current U.S. labor market’s “break-even point”—the number of jobs needed to keep the unemployment rate stable in the context of a sharp fall in immigration numbers.

At present, there is a wide divergence among Wall Street institutions in their estimates for tonight’s data—the most optimistic view expects March non-farm payrolls to increase by 150k, while the most pessimistic expects them to decrease by 15k, marking a “negative non-farm” for the second consecutive month.

On the unemployment rate front, economists expect the U.S. unemployment rate in March to hold steady at 4.4%. Although by past standards it would look quite weak when U.S. non-farm data in a given month grows only at a “single-digit” rate, now numbers like that may already be sufficient to keep the unemployment rate stable, or even make for a solid data performance.

Guy Berger, chief economist at Homebase, which provides labor management services for small businesses, said: “We must recalibrate our perception of what good and bad employment data look like.”

At the press conference following the Fed’s decision last month, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell also said that the labor market’s break-even point for employment growth is currently low; the number the Fed previously cited was around 50k, but he hinted that it could now be as low as zero—reasonable given the backdrop of a collapse in illegal immigration (which simultaneously affects both the employment numbers as the numerator and the size of the labor force as the denominator).

It should be noted that the volatility in the U.S. non-farm reports over the past two months has been very significant—January added 126k non-farm payroll jobs (well above expectations), while February unexpectedly recorded a loss of 92k jobs. Therefore, how tonight’s non-farm report will revise the data for the prior two months will be a major point of interest for market participants.

Could February’s unusually weak non-farm have been distorted?

Overall, industry insiders generally believe that the non-farm data showing a reduction of 92k jobs in February really looks bad—but there may have been some distortion behind it: about 30k workers from Kaiser Medical Group and Starbucks were on strike at the time, and were not counted in the labor force, while severe winter weather also seriously affected the construction industry and the leisure and hotel industries.

If these two effects are excluded, the underlying job creation is actually close to a decline of 30k to 40k jobs. While still weak, it would not be as dramatic.

In advance of the March non-farm, many investment banks are also currently expecting that the adverse factors in February employment data mentioned above will be alleviated, and may even boost the March data to some extent. A strategist at TD Securities pointed out that they expect March non-farm payroll employment to increase moderately by 30k.

“An inversion of the impact from weather and strikes should lead to an employment composition similar to the end of 2025, with relatively strong support in the healthcare sector this month. We also expect the unemployment rate to remain at 4.4%, despite the risk of an increase. Average hourly earnings month over month may grow modestly by 0.2%, translating to a year-over-year growth of 3.6%,” TD added.

Automatic Data Processing (ADP) said earlier this week that in March, employment in the private sector increased by 62k. In assessing the report, ADP’s chief economist Nela Richardson said that overall hiring remained steady, while employment growth for the month skewed toward certain industries, including healthcare (which saw a sharp decline in February).

Goldman Sachs estimates that March’s new non-farm will be slightly above the market consensus expectation—reaching 70k.

The favorable non-farm factors Goldman estimates include a 32k boost from the end of worker strikes; a seasonal rebound after growth was dragged down by poor weather in February; and the average number of people filing for unemployment insurance for the first time in March falling to 211k, below the 220k in February.

As for the unfavorable factors, Goldman expects government sector employment to decrease by 5,000 people (the federal government would decrease by 10k, partially offset by an increase of 5,000 from state and local governments).

Mixed/neutral factors are a mixed bag for other indicators that measure employment growth in March. The employment indicators tracked by Goldman currently suggest that employment growth in March averages around 69k.

Will the Middle East conflict impact still be limited for now?

As the first non-farm report under the impact of the Middle East conflict, investors tonight are also likely to want to know just how large the impact of this conflict will be on America’s workforce. However, industry insiders generally believe that it is still too early to judge how much the conflict will affect the U.S. labor market that is vulnerable, at least as the March report is unlikely to show a very large shock.

Nancy Vanden Houten, chief economist at Oxford Economics, said in a statement on Thursday: “The war between the U.S./Israel and Iran makes the labor market more fragile, but any impact will take time to show up. The latest unemployment insurance claims confirm this; the data indicate that the labor market conditions are stable.”

Goldman Sachs is currently the only institution that has explicitly modeled the impact of the oil shock on the labor market—the firm estimates that by year-end, the number of jobs in the U.S. will be held back by about 10k on average per month, mainly concentrated in leisure and hospitality as well as retail, because energy costs erode household disposable income.

However, Goldman notes that the key is that the transmission of the conflict’s impact often lags by 4 to 8 weeks. During the non-farm survey week in March, hiring mainly reflects sentiment from late February to early March—so the March data may still look fine, while April and May are when the real damage shows.

Of course, given that the Middle East conflict has already caused the market to swing back and forth in expectations for the Federal Reserve’s interest rate path—continuously oscillating between rate hikes and rate cuts—the quality of tonight’s non-farm data may, to a large extent, still influence the Fed rate scale’s tilt.

In terms of interest rate pricing, before the U.S.-Iran conflict broke out on February 28, overnight index swaps (OIS) had priced in more than two Fed rate cuts this year (25 basis points each). These expectations were then wiped out due to worries about inflation, and traders began pricing in the possibility that the Fed’s next move would be a rate hike. But recently, the market has started pricing again that the Fed might be closer to rate cuts.

Tom di Galoma, managing director at Mischler Financial Group, said: “This non-farm data is very likely to be stronger than what the bond market expects. Before the four-day Easter break in the U.K. and Europe, the whole week has been driven by risk aversion and the closing of positions.”

The Fxstreet analyst team also pointed out that if the number of non-farm jobs comes in unexpectedly stronger than 70k, it could prompt the market to reassess the likelihood of Fed rate hikes and lift the U.S. dollar. Conversely, if the data comes in below 50,000—especially if it comes with an increase in the unemployment rate—the dollar may find it difficult to outperform other currencies.

（Fuente: Caixin LeShe）