This week’s news flow will be heavy on geopolitics for obvious reasons, but there’s quite a bit on the macro calendar for when you get tired of reading about Nicolas Maduro.

The embattled BLS will release the December jobs report on Friday. Although some distortions from the US government shutdown will no doubt linger, this’ll be a cleaner read on the labor market than the Frankenstein release the bureau published on December 16.

Recall that the delayed impact of the Trump administration’s so-called “deferred resignation program” for federal employees resulted in a net 105,000-job loss in October. Hiring bounced back in November, according to the first estimate for that month which showed a 64,000 overall gain.

Consensus for December’s NFP print is 55,000. I’m sure there’s some science behind that but frankly it feels like we’re just using ~50,000 as a placeholder at a time when no one’s quite sure what to make of things.

Investors remain very skeptical of the BLS figures for all sorts of (good) reasons, which means ADP’s Wednesday update on private hiring (likewise seen at 55,000) and Challenger job cuts (on Thursday) will still garner quite a bit of attention.

I’ll be watching small business hiring in the ADP report. In the release covering November, firms with fewer than 50 employees shed 120,000 jobs, torpedoing the headline tally which printed a 32,000-job loss, the worst overall result since March of 2023.

There’s the chart again. That 120,000-job loss for small businesses in November counted as the largest one-month layoff in 15 years excluding the chaos around the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

The unemployment rate in the BLS household survey’s seen ticking down to 4.5% after rounding up to 4.6% in November. Most indicators continue to suggest the US hiring impulse is very weak, although rock-bottom jobless claims ostensibly underscore employers’ reluctance to let workers go (don’t tell Challenger).

It’s worth noting that ADP’s higher-frequency snapshot of private-sector job creation in the US inflected for the better in late-November and early-December.

Also on the US data docket this week: ISM manufacturing (seen in contraction territory for the — checks notes — 35th month in 38), ISM services (seen at 52.2), JOLTS for November, the first estimate of unit labor costs for Q3, the first of several catch-up government housing releases (starts and permits) and the preliminary read on University of Michigan sentiment for January (both that measure of household moods and the Conference Board’s metric registered some of their worst readouts on record in 2025).