IFR Preview-economic data for release March 30

WHAT: Challenger, Gray & Christmas layoffs, March
WHEN: Wednesday 0730 EDT (1130 GMT)
FORECASTS Reuters IFR Previous
Layoffs --- 41,500 50,702
IFR COMMENTARY: "IFR expects the number of layoff announcements
tracked by Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc will fall from
50,702 in February to 41,500 in March. That would be an 18%
drop from the prior month and a 38.5% drop from the same month
a year earlier. After averaging more than 60k in the first
quarter of 2010, layoff announcements tacked sharply for the
remainder of the year, posting an average 38,754 and with
comparatively low variation between months. February's 31.6%
spike was the sharpest percentage rise in 11 months and
resulted in the first year-ago advance in 20 months. About one
in three layoffs announced in February was in the government
and non-profit industry grouping; about one is six was in
retail. For March, we look for fewer job cuts in automotive,
electronics and financial industries. Excluding the volatile
government and autos sectors, announced layoffs should settle
back toward the lower boundary of their recovery range, around
35k."
WHAT: ADP National Employment, March
WHEN: Wednesday 0815 EDT (1215 GMT)
FORECASTS Reuters IFR Previous
Payrolls +203,000 +200,000 +217,000
IFR COMMENTARY: "The ADP Employment report should underestimate
BLS private payrolls just slightly in March, showing about a
200k gain. February's +217k reading (vs. +212k from the BLS)
probably cheered the ADP team after months of egregious,
unpredictable misses on both sides of the BLS reading the
series purports to track. It was only the second single-digit
miss since ADP revised their methodology in December 2008.

While the ADP changes continue to be extremely volatile
relative to the BLS, we look for a slight underestimation of
our private payrolls call for March, given what appears to be a
tendency toward greater underestimation as the year progresses.
With so little history under the current methodology, however,
and the aforementioned extreme volatility, we cannot put much
confidence in an ADP call, and it would take an extremely
off-the-mark reading to affect our BLS calls for the following
Friday. The sectoral breakdown, however, may be interesting."

For more Reuters consensus forecasts for U.S. indicators,
double-click on [ECI/US]

-- by Theodore Littleton and Jeoff Hall of IFR Markets, a
unit of Thomson Reuters.