The Jobs Number for January Could be Quite Bad, Much Worse than Expected

The non-seasonally adjusted number could come in around -3,400,000 jobs.

Luckily for the BLS January is the worst month for actuals, and therefore has the largest seasonality factor.

The 'imaginary jobs' number will not be a significant factor, since January is also the month in which they adjust out many of the imaginary jobs they added in the last six months that are obviously non-existent.

Our standard projections show the headline number coming in about -650,000+ which is pretty severe, but it could be much higher depending on how they apply the seasonality, or lower depending on how much they choose to adjust the prior months and 'smooth the decline.' An outside number could be -900,000.

So, all in all, there may be a large downward adjustment to December which may help to absorb some of the single month impact, but the consenses loss of 540,000 jobs looks optimistic.

Let's see what happens. We are prepared for the worst. We have some confidence that even 'the reformers' will gild the lily a bit to 'inspire confidence.' All statists fudge the numbers because the individual and the truth are servants of the state and the 'greater good.'