White House National Economic Council director Hassett said he focuses almost exclusively on the unemployment rate, which has already declined.

National Bank of Canada is the lone 4.1% outlier. Nineteen institutions forecast 4.2% — including Deutsche Bank, Mizuho, HSBC, RBC, BNP Paribas, Wells Fargo, Berenberg, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Oxford Economics, Pantheon Macroeconomics, Nordea, SocGen, Moody’s Analytics, Nomura, BMO, Barclays, TD Securities and High Frequency Economics. Nineteen institutions forecast 4.3% — including Sumitomo Mitsui, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Daiwa Capital Markets, Lloyds, Scotiabank, Standard Chartered, Westpac, ING, Capital Economics, Citigroup, NatWest, Commerzbank, Goldman Sachs, UBS, CIBC, Bank of America and U.S. Bancorp. Reuters expectation: 4.2%.

White House National Economic Council Director Hassett said he sees the labor force participation rate slightly weak.