The first official snapshot of the U.S. labor market since the government shutdown lands Tuesday morning, a collection of data that analysts and policymakers hope will help clarify the state of the economy after months of conflicting signals.
The report for November from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to present a complicated picture of a cooling labor market still buffeted by President Trump’s economic policies. Among the forces affecting the report — which will include a full complement of November jobs data and an incomplete set from October — is the end of the deferred resignation program for federal officials that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency launched this year. Economists have estimated that upward of 150,000 workers took the offer and would drop from the payrolls in October.
The government shutdown, which stretched a record 43 days from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, could show up as another drag on the data. The report will also include some belated data on October, collected from a survey of employers after the government shutdown ended.
“It is going to be a confusing report, I can guarantee that,” said Diane Swonk, chief U.S. economist for KPMG, an accounting firm. The confusion, she said, stems not only from the delayed reporting but from the “weird moment” the labor market is in, with cooling wages, pockets of labor shortages and little movement between jobs.
“All of the healthy churn is not there,” she said.
The November employment report was originally scheduled to be released on Dec. 5. Publication of September jobs data was delayed more than six weeks, until Nov. 20. That report showed a greater-than-expected increase in hiring, but with uneven gains centered on the health care and hospitality industries, along with a rise in unemployment.
The gap in the data has complicated decision-making by the Federal Reserve, which has been sharply divided over how to manage inflation. Last week, the central bank lowered interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point; the same day, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, cautioned that the labor market might be weaker than recent numbers had suggested.
Data on private-sector employment from ADP, a payroll processor, showed this month that private employment fell by 32,000 jobs in November, the third decline in four months. Though an outlier among sources of unofficial data, the ADP report was sobering, showing declines in manufacturing, construction and professional services, especially concentrated in small businesses.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the B.L.S. data to show that employers added about 50,000 jobs in November and that unemployment had edged up to 4.5 percent, from 4.4 percent, continuing a trend of sluggish job growth but steady unemployment in recent months.
Rebecca Davis O’Brien covers labor and the work force for The Times.
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