January jobs report may have gotten an extra boost from the weather

CNBC reports that economists forecast a slight pickup in job growth in January over December, but warmer weather could have been a positive factor that could have encouraged more hiring than expected in construction and some other industries.

Economists expect 158,000 nonfarm payrolls were added in January, up from 145,000 in December. Unemployment is expected to hold steady at 3.5%, while average hourly wages were expected to grow by 0.3%.

About 500,000 jobs will be cut from March 2018 through March 2019 as part of benchmark revisions. That would wipe out about 40,000 jobs a month and is the largest reversal in that number since the financial crisis. Sectors with the most jobs lost are retail and leisure and hospitality.

"There could also be adjustments to job growth later in 2019 as a result of the benchmark revisions, but we do not expect that those changes will be large enough to change our view that the labor market remains strong overall," according to Citigroup economists. They do note that the stronger 220,000 monthly pace of job growth originally reported in 2018 will be lower, after the revisions.

Economists said the ADP's stronger-than-expected 291,000 jobs for January, reported earlier this week, suggests that there was more hiring due to milder weather. That could also be a factor in the government report's, expected Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. But the government's monthly employment report does not always reflect the same outcome as ADP.

January 2020 was the fifth-warmest on record, though it was also a month with a lot of precipitation, according to NOAA.