Economists tend to shy away from attaching too much significanceto any one piece of data. But in this environment, with this jobsreport, hyper-scrutiny may be warranted.

When hiring in May eked out its weakest gain in more than fiveyears, the shock was enough to cement the Federal Reserve'sdecision to hold off on raising interest rates. Then came Brexit—theU.K.'s surprise vote to withdraw from the European Union—and globaleconomic anxieties were unleashed.

The June jobs report will therefore take on even more importancethan usual. Economists and policy makers will use it to determinewhether the strongest part of the economy slowed sharply evenbefore concerns over global growth intensified, or if the labormarket was merely hit by a temporary soft patch.

“There is a potential for a big reassessment on Friday for theoutlook,” said Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at HighFrequency Economics Ltd. in Valhalla, New York. “Given how muchviews changed after the last report, I get the sense that theanticipation level going into this one is unusually high.”

Payrolls probably climbed by 180,000 in June, according to themedian estimate of a Bloomberg survey of economists. That wouldfollow a 38,000 increase in May, which was the weakest sinceSeptember 2010.

Many economists remain optimistic about an underlying trend ofjob growth due to other labor-market indicators that still suggesthealth. Applications for jobless benefits remain historically low,employment indexes for both the manufacturing and servicesindustries rebounded last month, and job openings are hoveringaround record levels.

The return to work of striking employees at VerizonCommunications Inc. will probably help boost the June number, afterthe walkout depressed May's reading. Some 35,100 Verizon employeesended their almost-seven-week work stoppage on May 31, LaborDepartment data show.

Once the strikers are factored out, “that does imply some netslowing of the trend,” O'Sullivan said. Still, that rate of hiring“remains more than strong enough to keep the unemployment ratetrending down.”

The jobless rate is expected to rise to 4.8 percent afterfalling to a more-than-eight-year low of 4.7 percent in May asworkers streamed out of the labor force.

Data on earnings will also take on prominence after Fed ChairJanet Yellen noted long-awaited signs of improvement in wage growthlast month.

Average hourly earnings probably climbed 0.2 percent in Junefrom the month before and 2.7 percent from a year earlier,according to the median forecasts of economists. The 12-monthgain would be the largest since 2009.

“Readings on compensation—hourly compensation—are very noisy, soit's hard to know, but it looks like we're seeing somewhat fasterwage growth,” Yellen said in congressional testimony on June 22. “Ihope that it will be permanent.”

The predicted pickup in wage growth last month may be partlyattributable to what economists call base effects; the wage numberweakened in June 2015, so a bigger bounce this year may be in thecards. Looking past that, there still seems to be a nascentacceleration in pay, said Ethan Harris, head of global economicsresearch at Bank of America Corp. in New York.

“We're right at the point of the economic recovery where you'dbe expecting wages to pick up,” he said. “It'll probably take acouple more years to get back to 3.5 percent wage growth, which ismore normal, but the process seems to have started.”

Not only is that good for workers, but also for Fed policymakers. The U.S. central bank has a dual mandate of maximumemployment and price stability, and while the labor-market recoveryhas been well under way, inflation has languished below policymakers' 2 percent target for four years.

“It's a sign that the Fed's long battle to restore normal wageand price inflation is finally bearing some fruit,” Harrissaid.

Post-Brexit World

Of course, Brexitcomplicates things. With U.S. economic data now being poredover for signs of weakness, there's extra downside risk associatedwith a bad payrolls number—anything under 100,000, Harris said.

Unfortunately, the report will offer little clarity on howemployers reacted to the U.K.'s decision to leave the EU. With thereferendum held June 23, any immediate impact to U.S. employmentmay have been limited, even as investors grew concerned that theglobal economy's growth prospects have dimmed.

There's some indication that employers are monitoring, thoughnot yet acting on, the situation. A survey from the Institute forSupply Management showed most purchasing executives at Americanfactories and service producers expected a 'negligible' impact ontheir business due to Brexit and signaled they would probably notpare headcounts as a result of the vote.

The July jobs number will therefore be just as closely watchedas Friday's report.

“It could be that we get this strong employment number asexpected, and the market says, 'OK, that's great, but it's reallyold news,”' said Kathy Bostjancic, an economist at Oxford EconomicsUSA in New York. “Now we're in the brave new world of post-Brexit.That's the risk with the payrolls data—it could be dismissedbecause of that.”

With investors assigning less than a 50 percent chance for a Fedinterest-rate hike by the end of 2017, it'll take a positiveshocker of a June report to get the market to recalibrate itsexpectations for a prolonged period of easy money, Bostjancicsaid.

“The push out to 2018 I think is an extreme overreaction,”Bostjancic said. If the jobs report “shows very strong data, andparticularly if wages look like they've moved higher, that causesthe markets to double-think the idea that the Fed has beenparalyzed.”

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