Pulled this up from yahoo, it looks like over the last 2 months talk of "private" sector jobs have become as important as the over payroll job numbers itself. Last month the job numbers were a total miss and markets still moved higher, I guess people were just paying attention to the "private" payroll numbers. Nov 5 8:30 AM Nonfarm Payrolls Oct - 25K 60K -95K - Nov 5 8:30 AM Nonfarm Payrolls - Private Oct - 50K 60K 64K -
The problem is that no one can predict whether the market will rally or sell off if either numbers are good or bad. If private numbers are good and market rallies, the news headline will say: market rallied because of good jobs numbers. If private numbers are good and market sells off, the news headline will say: the market sold off despite great jobs numbers due to increased unease about the debt bubble in Portugal. The news will always seem to know what it's talking about, and it's always right, but always useless to a trader.