Jobs Growth Could Slow in First Quarter

By Newsroom America Staff at 6 Jan 2012

(Newsroom America) -- Despite a strong showing by private sector employers in December, first-quarter jobs growth is expected to slow somewhat and could even deteriorate, analysts said Friday.

On Thursday, payroll and analytical firms ADP and Macroeconomic Advisors said private-sector job creation surged by 325,000 in December, as government labor reports showed that jobless claims fell 15,000 to 372,000, a figure that remains high but consistent with recent trends showing overall declines in claims.

But CNBC.com reported Friday that kind of robust job growth isn't expected to continue throughout the first quarter. While some analysts still expect good employment figures to continue into January, experts Domm interviewed said that trend could be overtaken by a weakening economy.

"We’re reasonably cautious about first -half economic growth," Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Tilton told CNBC. "On average, for the year, we expect employment growth to be somewhat lower than we expect in this (December) report."

Still, Tilton said, "economic growth looks like it’s been a bit better in the last two to three months, so that’s generally correlated with hiring. I wouldn’t be surprised to get a pretty strong report in January."

The report noted that economists were generally dismissing the ADP report showing 325,000 new private sector jobs in December, attributing much of that growth to seasonal factors and adding that December figures tend to have been "overinflated" in the past.

On the Web: More about ADP's report

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