Private hiring slumps in US

US private companies shed jobs last month for the first time since December 2020 as the Omicron coronavirus variant again complicated business -- a potential harbinger of bad news for the upcoming government employment report.

Data from payroll services firm ADP released Wednesday said private employment declined by 301,000 in January, far worse than analysts expected, which the survey blamed squarely on the new virus strain.

"The labor market recovery took a step back at the start of 2022 due to the effect of the Omicron variant and its significant, though likely temporary, impact to job growth," ADP Chief Economist Nela Richardson said.

The data bolstered fears that the Labor Department employment report due out Friday will indicate weak hiring in January, perhaps as low as 200,000 or even a contraction, caused by the renewed onslaught of Covid-19 infections hitting the world's largest economy.

"We forecast the US payroll count turned negative in January with a net loss of 45,000 jobs -- the first decline in over a year," Lydia Boussour of Oxford Economics said, although she expects that seasonal adjustment factors will  "soften the blow."

Beyond a gauge of the labor market's recovery from the mass layoffs that marked the start of the pandemic, the government report will also be watched to see if it changes minds at the Federal Reserve.

Central bank officials have strongly indicated they will hike interest rates in March for the first time since the pandemic began, in a bid to fight inflation that hit a record high last year. However, Boussour predicted that  "a temporary pullback in the payroll count won't alter the Fed's bullish view of the labor market."