Simple extrapolation again

Calculated Risk previews Friday's jobs report. The consensus forecast is for an increase in employment of around 540,000, about 400,000 of which are temporary Census jobs (the Census will start cutting employment in June, so from then on Census hiring will reduce the employment numbers. Since government employment has been roughly stagnant for the past year, the experts are essentially forecasting an increase in private sector employment of 130,000 to 150,000.

The 130-150,000 forecast is an argument that the current recovery will look something like the recovery that began in 2003. The experts could be right. But simple extrapolation of the trend begun last spring would suggest that private sector employment will rise by 60,000 more than it rose last month, or roughly 290,000. That would give us a headline number of close to 700,000, plus or minus whatever happens with non-Census government employment. Is there any good reason to believe that private sector employment grew more slowly in May than in April? I don't see any, so I'll go with +290,000 private sector, +700,000 overall.