Markets brace for US jobs report, with White House telling investors ‘they shouldn’t panic’ – business live | Business

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It’s non-farm payrolls day! The eagerly-awaited US jobs report is out today, and the White House has been trying to moderate expectations.

Peter Navarro, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing to Donald Trump, was speaking on Fox News last night.

We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like. When we were letting in 2 million illegal aliens a day we had to produce 200,000 a month for steady stay.

Now 50,000 a month is going to be more like what we need. Wall Street, when this stuff comes out, they can’t rain on our parade, they just have to adjust for the fact that we’re deporting millions of illegals.

When asked whether the number would be weak, he rowed back and said no, but stressed that investors need to expect smaller numbers in future.

[A person can’t be illegal – see here.]

This comes after a warning from National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett on Monday. “One shouldn’t panic,” he told CNBC on Monday. “You should expect slightly smaller job numbers.”

The data release, delayed from last week, is expected to show the economy created 70,000 jobs in January, after 50,000 in December.

Darren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said:

The next steer for rate setters will be US non-farm payrolls data due later today. Forecasts are for an increase in hiring from 50,000 in December to 70,000 in January. That’s still a relatively light number, but anything lower could see markets gain more confidence in the scope for three rate cuts this year. Changes to the benchmark are also in play today, which are expected to see hiring rates for last year revised downwards.

Economists at Deutsche Bank said:

Our US economists see nonfarm payrolls coming in at +75k, with the unemployment rate staying at 4.4%. Remember as well that today’s report will include the annual benchmark revisions to payrolls, which could rewrite some of the trends over recent history.

We already got the preliminary number in September, which said that payrolls were -911k lower as of March 2025. However, that number can be different from the preliminary release, and last year’s preliminary benchmark revision was -818k but the final number was a smaller -589k, so not as negative as first thought.

The Agenda

• 1.30pm GMT: US non-farm payrolls for January (previous: 50,000; forecast: 70,000)

• 5.30pm GMT: Bank of England policymaker James Talbot gives speech