As pundits and prognosticators across the country bemoaned the lack of an official unemployment report Friday from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, thanks to the partial federal government shutdown, Gene Epstein of Barron’s examined other data to develop his own assessment.
Alas, it turns out that the release of economic data is considered one of the federal government’s nonessential services, a judgment few of us would dare dispute. Due to the partial government shutdown, then, the Bureau of Labor Statistics failed to labor last week on the September employment report, originally scheduled to be released on Friday, according to the usual plan.
When this nonessential service does resume, it could still take a few days before the BLS completes its calculations and releases the September jobs data. If the shutdown continues through the coming week and next, the agency could decide to save itself the trouble and release the September figures along with October’s, on Friday, Nov. 1.
Meanwhile, other employment data that are available shed light on how the job market did in September, and those numbers look fairly strong. So here’s a prediction: When the September jobs data finally are released, the results will show a gain in nonfarm payroll employment of a reasonably solid 180,000, which happens to be the average gain through the first eight months of this year. The unemployment rate, at 7.3% in August, a 4½-year low, probably held steady.
ONE REASON WE KNOW that the job market probably did well in September: According to figures released monthly by Automatic Data Processing, which provides payroll services, private-sector employment rose in September by 166,000. While these ADP figures have come under criticism for being unreliable, it turns out they are not half-bad in tracking private-sector gains reported by the BLS.
The main indication, however, about job-market performance in September comes from the Employment and Training Administration, which is part of the Department of Labor and is responsible for data compiled from state programs on unemployment-insurance claims. The ETA figures are even more timely than the BLS data and have a virtue the BLS figures lack; instead of being extrapolated from a sample, they are based on a universal count.
