Expectations Grow Ahead of Friday's Jobs Report

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- An economist who gets a cookie also wants a glass of milk.

To illustrate expectations ahead of Friday's monthly jobs report, look back only one month ago when monthly forecasts were still in the 150,000 ballpark for newly created jobs. After monthly gains ticked north of 200,000 in December and then again in January, economists are now looking for the same to happen in February.

Like expectations for declining jobless claims, the outlook for hiring is ramping up steadily. "Growth in hiring in the services sector is good, but now we want to see jobs being created in sectors that pay more, like manufacturing and professional services," says Quincy Krosby, market strategist with Prudential Financial. "We want to see a broader foundation for job growth because that points to sustainable economic growth."

The consensus, according to Thomson Reuters, for February is 225,000 new private-sector jobs for a total net job gain of 210,000, just shy of the 243,000 net new jobs created in the month of January. Unemployment last month likely stayed put at 8.3%.

Already, payroll processing firm Automatic Processing Data has come out with encouraging monthly figures, reporting earlier this week that companies added 216,000 new jobs in February.

Economists are saying that the ADP may have even underestimated the gain in the official count. "That's what it did in January when the ADP series rose 173,000, while the comparable official private payrolls rose 257,000," notes Ed Yardeni, economist at Yardeni Research. "Ditto all last year when the ADP data averaged monthly gains of 156,400, while the official tally averaged 174,250 per month."

High Frequency Economists, which is looking for the government to report 250,000 new jobs, also notes the ADP tends to undershoot. The firm's estimate is only accurate within 100,000 each month, a far cry from perfectly precise.