by Calculated Risk on 11/01/2012 09:18:00 PM

On Friday, at 8:30 AM ET, the BLS will release the employment report for October. The consensus is for an increase of 125,000 non-farm payroll jobs in September, slightly more than the 114,000 payroll jobs added in September. The consensus is for the unemployment rate to increase to 7.9%.

This month the ADP employment report showed an increase to 158,000 private sector jobs. That might suggest that the consensus is low, but the ADP methodology was changed and we will have to wait a few months to see if there is any improvement in predicting the BLS report.

Initial weekly unemployment claims averaged about 367,000 in October - near the lows for the year - and down from the September average of 373,000. That suggests a few more jobs added in October than in September.

For the BLS reference week (includes the 12th of the month), initial claims were at 392,000; up from 385,000 during the reference week in September - but that increase was due to timing and technical issues - so it might not be that negative.

The small business index from Intuit showed 10,000 payroll jobs lost, down from 40,000 added in September. That is a strong negative.

And on the unemployment rate from Gallup: U.S. Unadjusted Unemployment Down to 7.0% in October

UU.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, fell to 7.0% for the month of October, down significantly from the 7.9% measured at the end of September. Gallup's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 7.4%, improved more than a half a point from September.

Note: Gallup only recently has been providing a seasonally adjusted estimate for the unemployment rate, so use with caution (Gallup provides some caveats). Note: So far the Gallup numbers haven't been very useful in predicting the BLS unemployment rate.

Friday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, the Employment Report for October will be released. The consensus is for an increase of 125,000 non-farm payroll jobs in October. The consensus is for the unemployment rate to increase to 7.9% in October, up from 7.8% in September.

• At 10:00 AM, the Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories and Orders (Factory Orders) for September. The consensus is for a 4.0% decrease in orders.

Two more questions for the November economic prediction contest and four question for the November contest (Note: You can now use Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID to log in).