Transcripts

Will Good Employment Numbers Be Reported On Good Friday

PAUL KANGAS: A slow day of trading on Wall Street ahead of tomorrow's Good Friday holiday close for the stock market. Tomorrow will also mark a fairly rare event for investors as a major economic report is released on a market holiday. Scott Gurvey reports.

SCOTT GURVEY, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Good Friday is the one day of the year when the U.S. stock markets are closed, but it is not a government holiday. That is rarely a major problem for Wall Street. But tomorrow is an exception because, at 8:30 in the morning, the Labor Department will issue the employment situation report for March. That's the most closely watched economic report in any month. The February report showed payrolls increased by 97,000, a lower-than-expected number thought to have been reduced by bad weather. Yesterday, ADP reported 106,000 jobs were added to payrolls in March. A "Marketwatch" survey forecasts tomorrow's Labor Department report at 168,000, while a briefing.com survey comes in at 135,000. Economist Richard Yamarone of Argus Research says whatever the number, the American economy is near full employment.

RICHARD YAMARONE, CHIEF ECONOMIST, ARGUS RESEARCH: I think that the labor market is as tight as a drum. I think anybody who -- certainly any skilled worker who wants a job pretty much has one. We're seeing a near cyclical low in the unemployment rate. We're hearing very good numbers on the trend numbers, initial claims for unemployment benefit insurance, you know, taking as a trend a four-week moving average, very solid.

GURVEY: Because of the unusual events, bond traders work a short two- hour morning session tomorrow. That will give them time to adjust positions in response to the employment report's inflation signals. The key number is average hourly earnings, which grew by .3 of 1 percent in February. The consensus expects the same number for March. But economist David Resler of Nomura Securities expects something higher.

DAVID RESLER, CHIEF ECONOMIST, NOMURA SECURITIES: Judging from most of the anecdotal accounts we hear, wage pressures are likely to be a little bit stronger than they have been in the recent past as workers are able to command more of the share of corporate revenue growth. And that is one of the reasons we are seeing the squeeze on corporate earnings.

GURVEY: First quarter earnings reports begin next week and most analysts expect earnings growth to be in the single digits. That's compared to the double-digit growth of the last 14 quarters. Scott Gurvey, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, New York.