Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics produces the most reliable gauge of U.S. employment. But close watchers of the economy will be left rudderless if, as expected, the bureau withholds the data on Friday because of the federal government shutdown.
The agency’s measurements of wage growth, unemployment and job creation guide investors allocating capital and monetary policymakers deciding whether the economy needs a boost.
Without the data, the outlook is foggy as hazards abound, so businesses could be even less willing to make decisions about the future.
“In this environment, the risk of slower growth stems from reduced visibility into the economy in an already uncertain period, and less so from the shutdown itself,” wrote Mike Reid, a U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets, in a note to clients.
The numbers are not likely to be released until the government reopens, but right now the forecast for employment growth is muted. Economists polled by Bloomberg expected that employers added 53,000 jobs last month, fewer than the 64,000 added on average over the six previous months, before revisions. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago estimated that the unemployment rate remained at 4.3 percent.
Other labor market indicators generated by the private sector have been downbeat. The payroll processor ADP estimated that nongovernmental employers shed 32,000 jobs in September, while the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found that companies’ announced hiring plans so far this year were at the lowest level since 2009.
“Labor market weakness is evident and it’s accelerating, and what counts as a good jobs report is going to increasingly get revised down,” said Andrew Flowers, chief economist at Appcast, a recruiting technology firm. “The main driver of that is labor supply contracting, particularly with immigration restrictions. But there’s also evidence that demand is also weakening.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, sent a letter on Thursday calling on the Labor Department to release the data despite the shutdown. According to William Beach, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the monthly survey was collected and processed this week.
Shutdown or not, the government has already canceled some data collection, such as an annual survey of food security and another on farmworker wages, that will obscure understanding of America’s economic health.
Lydia DePillis reports on the American economy for The Times. She has been a journalist since 2009, and can be reached at [email protected].
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