March Employment Report Preview

Tomorrow, we get official numbers on how many jobs the U.S. economy created in April. The median estimate among market economists surveyed by Bloomberg is for 140,000 new nonfarm payrolls, up from last month's dismal 88,000 figure.

This month’s payrolls report is one only a statistician could love. The official press release contains three whole pages on the subject of revisions and rebenchmarking, on top of the box on the front page: the very clear message is that we’re starting a new year, and that it’s a very bad idea to compare the January numbers to the December numbers.

By On Second Look:The Employment Situation report comes out monthly at 8:30am, EDT on the first Friday of each month. The release includes a significant amount of data. April's release on May 4th, 2012 included 38 pages of survey data. Probably the most watched (by investors) data item in this release is the change in nonfarm payrolls (NFP). April's release showed a gain of 115,000 jobs, well below the estimate of 160,000 and below what is considered necessary for a healthy U.S. economy.

MarketPulse FX submits: By Scott Boyd

What’s the link between religion and happiness? This paper (pdf) suggests that it is not a linear one, but rather U-shaped: All else constant, people are happier in countries in which the level of religiosity is either high or low, but are less happy in countries with intermediate levels of religiosity.