Beware a blowout April jobs report

 - by New Deal democrat

I just wanted to note this before tomorrow’s jobs report is released.

I suspect that, just as initial jobless claims were distorted for several weeks to the positive side due to residual seasonality due in turn to the very late date on which Easter fell this year, the jobs report will have the same issue. This is in large part to the jobs survey week being the 13th, which this year was the week before Easter, and gave us one of the two sub-200k initial claims numbers.

So, if tomorrow is a blowout, take it with an extra grain of salt. We’ll have to average it with the May report next month, which will include the weaker weeks after Easter.