by Calculated Risk on 5/27/2012 02:02:00 PM

A few forecasts for the May employment report to be released on Friday. From Bloomberg: Job Growth in U.S. Probably Picked Up After April Slowing

Payrolls climbed by 150,000 workers after a 115,000 gain in April, according to the median forecast of 68 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of Labor Department figures due June 1.
...
Private payrolls, which exclude government jobs, climbed 160,000 in May after rising 130,000 last month, the weakest since August, economists forecast the Labor Department report will show.
...
The jobless rate, derived from a separate survey of households, held at a three-year low of 8.1 percent in May, economists in the Bloomberg survey predicted.

From Goldman Sachs:

We forecast that nonfarm payroll employment increased by 125,000 in May, given continued weather “payback.” We expect the unemployment rate to remain unchanged

And from Merrill Lynch:

We expect non-farm payrolls to increase 140,000 in May, leaving the three month moving average to slow to 128,000. This is a marked deceleration from the three month average gain of 252,000 from December through February. As we have been arguing for some time, we believe this swing can largely be explained by the abnormally warm weather in the winter.

[T]he household measure of employment is likely to look soft. In addition, the labor force participation rate could tick up modestly to reverse some of the recent sharp declines. This would push the unemployment rate up to 8.2% from 8.1% last month

2012 Monthly Payroll Jobs Added (000s)
	Total nonfarm	Private	Public	Unemployment Rate
January	275	277	-2	8.3%
February	259	254	5	8.3%
March	154	166	-12	8.2%
April	115	130	-15	8.1%
May	1501	1601	-101	8.1%1
1Consensus forecast for May from Bloomberg.

Yesterday:
• Summary for Week Ending May 25th
• Schedule for Week of May 27th