3 Things to Watch in Friday’s January Jobs Report

The January jobs report will be released on Friday and economists expect nonfarm payrolls to rise by 188,000. Steve Blitz, chief economist at ITG, expects a slightly lower 175,000 increase in jobs for the month, coming off of December’s blowout 292,000 headline number, which crushed estimates of 200,000. ‘It’s kind of a tough month to try and guess,’ Blitz said. ‘There were a lot of seasonal adjustments that basically boosted the numbers in December and those mis-adjustments that were big positives in December become negatives in January.’ Blitz said the average of both December and January’s number will give a better sense of the labor market’s health. ‘The difference between 175,000 to 188,000 to 200,000 is essentially the same number,’ he said. With monthly job reports, revisions to prior months is something economists pay close attention to. TheStreet’s Scott Gamm reports from Wall Street.