Since everyone is apocalyptic right now, and assuming a horrible number, it probably won't be that bad... I'll go with 50 - 75k Of course the ADP # is kind of a joke anyway; non-farm on friday should be interesting.
ADP is just another joke, last month the market rallied on the fact it showed a better jobs picture only to see the job numbers come out days later that showed there were fewer jobs added for the month of June! At this point the worse the job picture gets the more positive it is for the equity market since BUBBLE ben bernanke will prepare for QE3 over the next few weeks!
New Wave of Layoffs Suggests Jobs Report May Disappoint CNBC.com | August 02, 2011 | 08:21 PM EDT Traders increasingly believe Friday's July jobs report will come as a disappointment, after a string of very weak economic reports and a recent wave of corporate layoffs. Economists expect about 85,000 non farm payrolls and a 9.2 percent unemployment rate, when the monthly employment report is released Friday. But some traders see that number as too high, and there are whispers the number could be flat. RBS economist Michelle Girard said she expects 75,000 jobs were added, but she concedes that number could be too high. Just 18,000 non farm payrolls were added in June, and 25,000 were added in May. "I just think there was very little reason for people to be hiring in July, if they weren't hiring in May or June. I don't think they'd be inspired to hire in July. The degree of uncertainty seemed greater," said Girard. "It's certainly in the realm of possibilities to see a negative print," she said. "I'm worried about that because it would do a lot of psychological damage and feed the pessimism and concerns." In the past two days, Barclays was reported to have cut 3,000 jobs, and HSBC [ HBC 49.30 -0.36 (-0.72%) ] announce it was trimming an astounding 30,000 workers from its global workforce. Last Friday, Merck [ MRK 32.90 -0.54 (-1.61%) ] announced a new round of job cuts, saying it would pare 13,000 employees from its work force of 91,000 by 2015. Failed bookseller, Borders is letting go another 10,700 workers, as it shuts down all of its retail stores. "The bottom line is there's been a noticeable pickup in those kinds of announcements from where we were. At the turn of the year, we were getting all kinds of signs from companies that they were hiring. Then it got quiet, and now it seems to be going the other way," Girard said. "There's a change in tone out there. I'm more concerned about the outlook now than I was at any point since we emerged from recession. It's not near where I think we're going to double dip, but I would say to people that I'm watchful for that," she said. More intelligence on the employment picture should come from ADP's private sector payroll report, released Wednesday, ahead of the Wall Street open, as well as the layoff report from Challenger Gray and Christmas. "These heavy cuts are a sign the economy is stalling. The GDP numbers back it up. This is a concrete result of what you get when you see GDP stalling under 2 percent, like we've seen for two consecutive quarters," said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger Gray and Christmas, which monitors layoffs. While each company making cuts has a special story, Challenger said the fact the layoffs are across so many industries is a telling sign for the economy. "These layoffs were very broad-based. Many of these companies are iconic companies, well known, big names. This is what precipitates out when you have an economy that is stalling. You then have major companies, not concentrated in one industry," reducing headcount, he said in a phone interview Monday. Challenger said the layoffs are coming from financial, pharmaceutical, defense, retail and technology companies. Challenger says it is unusual to see companies announce substantial staff reductions at this time of year. "Over the long haul, when demand is this soft or growth this much below trend, you tend to get the same for jobs. When you see GDP do what it's doing, upon the rewrite of history, it makes a little more sense to see that downshift," said Credit Suisse economist Jonathon Basile. Basile expects to see 90,000 nonfarm payrolls were added in July when the government releases the monthly employment report, including the reduction of 25,000 government jobs. Weekly jobless claims were at 398,000 last week, under the psychologically important 400,000 level for the first time in three months. "There's so many crosscurrents. All the indicators we look at are not going in one direction," he said. "There's no doubt (corporate layoffs) are in the news. I'm taking what happened to jobless claims in July with a grain of salt. I don't know how we stay below 400,000. We've seen layoff announcements that are pretty public," said Basile. Slow Growth Last Friday's report of first and second quarter GDP drove home the sluggish state of the U.S. economy and provides a backdrop for a 9.2 percent unemployment rate and the string of poor jobs reports in the past several months. The second quarter grew at a 1.3 percent pace, well below the 1.8 percent expected by economists, but the shocker was a revision knocking first quarter growth down to 0.4 percent, from a previous 1.9 percent. Economists had been expecting second-half growth to accelerate to a level of about 3 percent, but several cut their third-quarter estimates to a 2 percent range after the number. "The (GDP) revisions were pretty massive. The risks have been to the downside for a few weeks," said J.P. Morgan [ JPM 39.84 -0.60 (-1.48%) ] economist Michael Feroli. Feroli has been expecting to see growth of about 2.5 percent in the current third quarter but that is still a low level of activity. "I don't think it's sufficient to get any meaningful job growth," he said. Monday's disappointing ISM manufacturing survey was the first major piece of third-quarter data, and it showed the impact of a slower economy. The index was at 50.9, well below the expected 54.5. A level below 50 signals contraction. The jobs component of the ISM report was also worrisome. Goldman Sachs economists say in a note that expectations for Friday's employment report may now decline. "Among the components, the largest decline came from the employment index, which fell by 6.4 points to 53.5. This may cause some forecasters to trim expectations for nonfarm payroll employment, published Friday. The current consensus is for a gain of 90,000. (We are below consensus at 50,000)," they wrote. Layoffs Add Up Other companies laying off workers include Lockheed Martin [ LMT 73.68 -0.78 (-1.05%) ], which is letting 6,500 workers go. Credit Suisse [ CSCO 15.46 -0.37 (-2.34%) ] is reported to be cutting 2,000 jobs, while UBS [ UBS 15.71 -0.76 (-4.61%) ] is reported to be trimming 5,000 positions and Goldman Sachs [ GS 131.23 -2.92 (-2.18%) ], 1000. Cisco [ CSCO 15.46 -0.37 (-2.34%) ] is laying off 6,500, and Canadian-based Research In Motion [ RIMM 24.15 -0.64 (-2.58%) ] is cutting 2,000 jobs. Evidence of July's hiring and firings will show up in the monthly employment report this Friday, and an increasing number of firings could come from the public sector. "I think it will be just a so-so number. I would say it is probably under 100,000," Feroli said. Job growth has been flat recently, with just 18,000 workers added in June and 25,000 in May. That compares to 217,000 in April. Moody's Economy.com economist Mark Zandi said the weak job environment has been the result of companies not hiring, as opposed to firing. "So far, it's been a lack of hiring, but I thought it was more due to things like the Japanese quake effect on motor vehicles. But when you see these kind of growth rates, you're going to start refocusing on costs and that means layoffs. If we stay here much longer, there's going to be more cuts," said Zandi. U.S. auto manufacturing was impacted after the March earthquake because of the unavailability of parts from Japan. Zandi said positive action by Congress on raising the debt ceiling and structuring a fiscal plan might also help the economy and the job situation, he said. Economists have said the drama around the debt ceiling extension and deficit reduction has sidelined business activity and consumers, but the amount of direct economic impact is hard to gauge. They say the ISM data reflected nervousness on the part of manufacturers. Congress was moving toward a vote Monday night, after an agreement on a plan was announced by President Obama. The government has until Tuesday to extend the debt ceiling. (Follow the latest in the debt debate here) "The economy is just sucking wind and will be suffocated if they don't nail this down," said Zandi. Challenger Gray releases its monthly layoff data Wednesday. Challenger has reported that the number of planned layoffs at U.S. firms increased in June for a second month. Employers in June announced 41,432 layoffs, up 11.6 percent from May and up 5.3 percent from the year earlier. Downsizing in the U.S was at its lowest pace in the first half since 2000.
The better question is: who, besides the headline scanning robots, gives a crap what this number is, as it is completely unrelated to what the BLS will publish tomorrow (and historically inaccurate).