US non-farm payrolls for January will be released on Friday (February 2nd, 2018) at 13:30 GMT.

Analysts expect to see an increase of 184,000 this month following the worse than expected data in December of 148,000 new jobs.

Investors will also focus on the unemployment rate which remained at 4.1% in December.

A positive reading may support Fed rate hike plans and 3 rate increases are expected sometime this year.

What to expect this month:

This week’s NFP release, per market consensus, is expected to show that the U.S. economy added 175K jobs in January after adding 148K in December – which was below market expectations.

The U.S. Labour market continues to strengthen as the global economy grows and market expectations are forecasting a strong NFP release as we begin 2018.

The markets will be closely watching the annualized average hourly earnings figure, which was 2.5% in December with many forecasts calling for January’s release to grow slightly to 2.6%.

How market prices will react?

If we see a significantly bad NFP release of <115K, coupled with an Unemployment Rate >4.2%, the markets will most likely see USD come under downward pressure.

A strong NFP release of >235K, with the Unemployment Rate below 4.0%, will likely result in USD strengthening.

As always, it will be important to note any revision from the previous month (148K) as this will impact market sentiment regardless of the current release.