With as dismal a run as we’ve had in the economy over the last few years, it’s tempting to start looking for the glass to be half full.
After a traumatic late summer and fall, the economy showed some signs it was sputtering back with holiday sales strength and three months of steady – if uninspiring – job growth.
Hopes are rising for signs of accelerating job creation in Friday’s Labor Department report, following a decline in the four-week average of new unemployment claims and a strikingly robust report of job growth from ADP, the payroll service. ADP said on Thursday that the private sector added 325,000 jobs in December, the strongest increase in a year.
Without trying to knock the glass over, we have to point out that many economists consider the ADP numbers less than predictive.
“Its track record is spotty (and that characterization is being polite),” Tom Porcelli, senior United States economist at RBC Capital Markets in New York, wrote in a research note.” ADP often revises its numbers, and historically, December’s numbers have been subject to fairly wide swings.
Government forecasts, of course, can change as well, so perhaps Friday’s number will come with a dollop
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