The report will very much be a lagging data point, all things considered. However, it’s at least a start in trying to piece back together the picture after the longest US government shutdown in history. As a reminder, this will be the report for the September month. As for the October month, don’t hold your breath on counting on that to be released.
Before we got to the government shutdown, analyst forecasts point to the September payrolls as being estimated at 60k. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is estimated to hold steady at 4.3%. Here’s a quick snapshot of that roughly seven weeks ago (h/t @ MNI):
The general line of thinking is that the labour market held up modestly in September but got worse in October. And knowing the Trump administration, they don’t want to depict poor economic conditions and so that’s likely to see the October numbers failing to be published. Funnily enough, that in itself might be a key factor in deciding what the Fed does next month.
If all they have are the September numbers, policymakers might want more clarity in the next two months before actually deciding their next step.
This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.