Indiana Grain Company, LLC

Posted: 01/06/12

By: tomgrisafi

It could be a big up day for the Dow.

Or a really bad day if expectations aren't met.

“ number should be pretty good,” said Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Tilton, who tells CNBC that job advertising and other indicators show an improved hiring picture.

Weekly jobless claims, reported at 372,000 Thursday, continue to decline.

“In general, economic growth looks like it’s been a bit better in the last two to three months, so that’s generally correlated with hiring. Weather was very mild so that would tend to help things like construction hiring,” said Tilton.

Goldman Sachs economists’ forecast of 175,000 nonfarm payrolls is among the highest for the December report.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to get a pretty strong report in January” also, he said. “We’ve had low layoffs relative to where we were for the last few years. I would think the January report would be reasonably good and the economic data have been pretty good.”

The jobs report will be released at 8:30am ET today.

Source: CNBC