SIMONE DEL ROSARIO: THE WHITE HOUSE IS BRACING FOR A BAD JOBS REPORT THIS WEEK – AND IS TRYING TO GET IN FRONT OF IT BY REPEATEDLY WARNING JUST HOW BAD IT COULD BE.

OFFICIALS SAY OMICRON WILL LIKELY SKEW HIRING RESULTS – SINCE NEARLY 9 MILLION PEOPLE CALLED OUT SICK THE WEEK THE DATA WAS COLLECTED IN JANUARY.

IT WAS THE SAME WEEK OMICRON CASES PEAKED IN THE U-S.

THE WAY THE LABOR COUNT WORKS, HOURLY WORKERS WHO HAVE TO STAY HOME SICK WITHOUT PAID LEAVE – ARE NOT COUNTED AS EMPLOYED, EVEN IF THEY HAVEN’T BEEN LAID OFF. 

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: So we just wanted to kind of prepare, you know, people to understand how the data is taken, what they’re looking at, and what it is an assessment of.  And as a result, the month’s jobs report may show job losses in large part because workers were out sick from Omicron at the point when it was peaking during the period when — the week where the data was taken.

SIMONE DEL ROSARIO: GENERAL ECONOMIST CONSENSUS IS THAT THE U-S ECONOMY ADDED ABOUT 150-THOUSAND JOBS IN JANUARY – WHICH IF TRUE –  WOULD STILL BE THE WORST REPORT SINCE DECEMBER 2020.

BUT SOME THINK THE NUMBERS COULD ACTUALLY BE IN THE NEGATIVE, WHICH WOULD BE A HUGE BLOW TO THE WHITE HOUSE – HENCE THE WARNINGS.

THE JOBS REPORT IS OUT THIS FRIDAY.

I’M SIMONE DEL ROSARIO. FROM NEW YORK IT’S JUST BUSINESS.