SmartMarketData is forecasting the BLS NFP jobs number for November to print at 259K, above the Bloomberg Consensus High of 250K, and consensus of 190K.
Our proprietary model uses the LinkUp RAW Jobs data set as the primary input. LinkUp RAW is a real-time daily data set of job postings world wide, for over 35K companies. We believe this data is the most objective and real time look at job placements, and company management expectations of their future business prospects.
We are forecasting October's JOLTS (Job Openings) to be 6.254m, down from our preliminary estimate of 6.4m. We are giving our preliminary JOLTS estimate for November at 6.3m.
We saw strong creation of job postings, and strong fills of job postings in our forecast period, leading to our above consensus estimate. We also saw a strong tick upward in Job Post Duration (our proprietary indicator for labor slack), which suggests labor slack continues to tighten. Based on all of our inputs, we expect the Unemployment Rate to drop again to 4.0%.
