The US may add as many as 300,000 jobs in March, the most in four years, setting the stage for what some economists say will be sustained employment gains.
Better weather, hiring of temporary government workers and a growing economy may bring the biggest job increases since March 2006, said David Greenlaw, chief fixed-income economist at Morgan Stanley in New York. The rise would be the second since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.
February payrolls dropped by 36,000, the Labor Department reported last week, depressed in part by East Coast snowstorms that closed many businesses. Excluding the effects of the weather and the hiring of government workers to conduct the 2010 Census, payrolls would have climbed by about 100,000, Greenlaw said today in a Bloomberg Radio interview.
"If you get a plus 100,000 number again in March, then you'd be talking about a headline reading of a little bit better than 300,000 when you factor in the weather bounce-back and the census effect," he said.
The US needs employment growth to sustain a recovery from a recession that has cost 8.4 million jobs since December 2007. Christina Romer, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, today pressed for passage of the administration's plan to boost hiring through tax credit, calling the labor market "severely distressed."
The February drop in payrolls was smaller than the 68,000 median decline forecast by economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before the March 5 report. The jobless rate, which hasn't increased since October, held at 9.7 per cent, even as more people entered the workforce.
'Sharp Snapback'
"We expect a sharp snapback in March payrolls as well," said Dean Maki, chief US economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, the most accurate forecaster in a Bloomberg News survey in December. He didn't give a specific estimate.
Jan Hatzius, chief US economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in New York, said in a March 6 e-mail to customers that he anticipates payrolls this month will climb by about 275,000. About 50,000 of that represents the "underlying trend" in employment, he said, with about 100,000 attributable to the weather and another 125,000 to the census.
Goldman Sachs lowered its unemployment forecast for early 2011 by a quarter-point to 10.25 per cent as a result of the February jobs report. It's "more likely" that monthly payroll gains this year will hover in the 100,000 range rather than climb to the 250,000 to 300,000 area seen in previous recoveries, Hatzius said, because the boost to economic growth from efforts to rebuild inventories and government stimulus will wane later this year.
Growth Seen 'Soon'
The Obama administration has yet to predict job gains for March. Romer, speaking today at a gathering of economists in Arlington, Virginia, said "employment growth could commence in the next few months." Last week Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, said he expects job growth "soon."
"We could easily see" 300,000 jobs added this month, Brian Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust Portfolios in Wheaton, Illinois, said today in a Bloomberg Radio interview. "I don't expect to see consistent gains of that size, but clearly March could be that number."
The Labor Department is scheduled to release March employment figures on April 2.
