Our favourite way to forecast the US jobs numbers

This remains our favourite way to predict the US labour data release.

After last month’s non-farm payroll prediction miss, this month we are using a different cat #NFPguesses pic.twitter.com/CwwyVhsYas

— Craig Drake (@csdrake) February 7, 2014

Last time this was tried Bob the cat was well off – but that’s because her options were restricted from 150,000 to 230,000.

Nonfarm payroll additions came in at a seasonally adjusted 74,000 for December.

While the method’s accuracy may be a little suspect, human analysts got it wrong as well. They had been expecting a number around the 196,000 mark.

This month we’re hoping that Geoffrey Boycat will be closer to the mark. He expects job additions of 170,000 this month.

My analyst @GeoffreyBoycat has predicted this month’s US non-farm payroll numbers at 170k #NFPguesses pic.twitter.com/JMeFuaSQbd

— Craig Drake (@csdrake) February 7, 2014

Consensus estimates suggest that the US economy will have added 185,000 jobs in January. We’ll have the number at around 1.30pm today.

Update: Geoffrey beat the humans this month