It is gearing up to be another busy week for market participants with a slew of earnings announcements on the calendar and the highly-anticipated April’s jobs report.

Earnings season is officially halfway through, and so far, technology companies have had the best earnings reactions. Raymond James Chief Investment Officer Larry Adam pointed out that the average tech name beat earnings estimates by 8.4% and rallied 2.7% on the results.

“This is important given the Technology sector’s market leadership and large weighting within the S&P 500. With Q1 earnings season at the halfway point, the S&P 500 is now expected to see a 16% earnings contraction for the full quarter. Many companies have withdrawn guidance (due to uncertainty), however, the consensus earnings estimate is now for a -35% earnings contraction in Q2, followed by directional improvement in Q3, Q4, and into 2021,” Adam said.

Some of the heavyweights reporting this week include Disney, Shake Shack, Tyson Foods, Regeneron, Beyond Meat, Pinterest, General Motors, CVS, Lyft, PayPal, Peloton, Square, Roku and Uber.

Due to the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, investors have been heavily focused on managements’ commentary regarding the pandemic as well as any potential guidance that’s given for the future.

April jobs report

COVID-19’s impact on employment in the U.S. will take centerstage this week when the Labor Department releases April’s jobs report Friday.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the U.S. to have lost 21.3 million jobs in April, down significantly from 701,000 job losses in March. The unemployment rate is estimated to have surged to 16% from 4.4% in the prior month.

“The April employment report will show the most-severe one-month contraction ever,” Credit Suisse economist James Sweeney said in a note to clients April 30. “We expect headline payrolls to decline by 25 million – over thirty times the largest drop during the global financial crisis. The unemployment rate should spike higher to a new post-war record. Headline wage growth will appear positive, but this is a statistical mirage caused by the rapid destruction of low-wage jobs.”

One important thing to note with April’s jobs report is that there might be some discrepancies in the two surveys. A furloughed person, who is not working but has not been laid off, will be classified as unemployed or temporarily laid off in the household survey. However, if they were paid at any point during the establishment survey period, they will be classified as employed.

“The household survey is typically noisier, but it can be a better measure of job losses in an extreme downturn. The payrolls numbers are based on a survey of businesses, which will struggle to capture the magnitude of cyclical turning points when establishments are closing rapidly. The household measure of employment showed a decline of nearly 3 million in March,” Sweeney explained.

The leisure and hospitality industries are expected to have been hit the hardest. And while the unemployment rate will likely skyrocket, the surge shouldn’t persist for long, according to economists.

“The unemployment rate is likely to remain elevated in May, but when businesses re-open it should fall sharply,” Sweeney said. “The recovery will be incomplete, but we do not expect double-digit unemployment to persist for long. Many workers are temporarily furloughed, which can speed the rehiring process.”

Earnings calendar

Monday: Tyson Foods (TSN) before market open; Del Taco (TACO), Shake Shack (SHAK), Skyworks (SWKS) after market close

Tuesday: Incyte (INCY), Regeneron (REGN), Wayfair (W) before market open; Activision Blizzard (ATVI), Beyond Meat (BYND), Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), Disney (DIS), Electronic Arts (EA), Mattel (MAT), Pinterest (PINS) after market close

Wednesday: CVS (CVS), General Motors (GM), Wendy’s (WEN), Wingstop (WING) before market open; Etsy (ETSY), Fox (FOXA), Grubhub (GRUB), IAC/Interactive Corp (IAC), Lyft (LYFT), PayPal (PYPL), Peloton (PTON), Sonos (SONO), Square (SQ), T-Mobile (TMUS), Twilio (TWLO) after market close

Thursday: Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD), Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY), Hilton Worldwide (HLT), ViacomCBS (VIAC) before market open; Booking Holdings (BNKG), Dropbox (DBX), Roku (ROKU), Uber (UBER) after market close

Friday: Bloomin Brands (BLMN) Cronos (CRON); Hostess Brands (TWNK) before market open

Economic calendar

Monday: Factory Orders, March (-9.4% expected, 0.0% in February); Durable Goods Orders, March final (-14.4% expected, -14.4% prior); Durable Goods excluding Transportation, March final (-0.2% expected, -0.2% prior)

Tuesday: Trade Balance, March (-$44.2 billion expected, -$39.9 billion in February); Markit US Services PMI, April final (27.0 expected, 27.0 prior); Markit US Composite PMI, April final (27.4 prior); ISM Non-manufacturing index, April (37.8 expected, 52.5 in March)

Wednesday: MBA Mortgage Applications, week ended May 1 (-3.3% prior); ADP Employment Change, April (-20.5 million expected, -27,000 in March)

Thursday: Initial Jobless Claims, week ended May 2 (3 million expected, 3.839 million prior); Continuing Claims, week ended April 25 (19.6 million expected, 17.99 million prior); Bloomberg Consumer Comfort, week ending May 3 (39.5 prior)

Friday: Change in Nonfarm Payrolls, April (-21.3 million expected, -701,000 in March); Unemployment Rate, April (16% expected, 4.4% in March); Wholesale Inventories month-on-month, March final (-1.0% expected, -1.0% prior)

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Heidi Chung is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @heidi_chung.

More from Heidi:

• McDonald's tests restaurant designed to combat COVID-19 spread

• Jobless claims: Another 3.84 million Americans file for unemployment benefits

• McDonald's Q1 global same-store sales tumble 3.4% amid COVID-19

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