Big Red Car here.  Well, it is early and I am not sure what kind of day today will bring.  It is a Thursday and The Boss is looking forward to the Final Four this weekend.  Who is going to win?

Me, I’m looking to the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) Friday employment report.  As I am sure you also are.  Haha, Big Red Car, you crack me up.

There is an entire cottage industry predicting what the report is going to say.  Folks like ADP — the payroll processing guys — and TrimTabs and Investing.com and Briefing.com all make their own estimates in anticipation of the report.

Here are their current estimates for tomorrow:

ADP — 158,000 new jobs

TrimTabs — 156,000

Investing.com — 200,000

Briefing.com — 192,000

Anything in the 150,000 new jobs or close range will be a huge disappointment.  To put that number in perspective, we need about 140,000 jobs just to keep pace with new workers coming into the job market.  With millions of folks out of work and about 140,000 coming into the labor force each month, we have a long road ahead of us to begin to work through the current inventory of unemployed.  Years and years at this rate.

Here is a graph which shows the range of estimates and reality among BLS, ADP and TrimTabs.  It is from Doug Short’s fabulous website right HERE. <<<link

As you can see, the predictions and reality have been all over the place.  Last month ADP hit it right on the money.  It is interesting to see how close the ADP and TrimTabs estimates are to each other.  Again, if ADP and TrimTabs are correct, the numbers will be a huge disappointment.

In all of the current debate about sequestration and immigration and gun control, we seem to have forgotten that the economy is as weak as a kitten and that the job creation dynamic is incredibly weak.  At current rates of job creation, we are looking at 400 years before the job market will recover.  OK, the Big Red Car is lying.  But it is a long, long time into a very uncertain future.

But, hey, what the Hell do I know anyway?  I’m just a Big Red Car.