Labor Department officials said the partial federal government shutdown disrupted the release timetable for key labor data, pushing back the monthly jobs report that is scheduled to be published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In a statement Monday, the agency said it will not put out the January jobs report on Friday as originally planned.
The BLS said it will resume normal operations once federal funding is restored and that it will notify the public of any changes to the schedule after that point. The agency said it also postponed the December report on job openings, which had been due Tuesday.
The delays come as economists monitor a tension in the broader economy: growth has continued to be strong while hiring appears comparatively muted. The AP report said gross domestic product advanced from July through September at the fastest pace in two years, even as the job market has shown weaker momentum.
According to the report, employers have added an average of 28,000 jobs a month since March, compared with the 400,000 jobs per month created during the 2021-2023 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns. With the jobs report and job openings data now delayed, economists will have to wait longer to assess whether hiring is set to accelerate, whether growth will slow to align with hiring, or whether productivity gains and automation are shifting the relationship between economic output and job creation.
Even with the shutdown postponing these releases, some other labor indicators can still offer near-term signals. Initial jobless claims stood at 209,000 for the latest week in the FRED series checked for this article’s date, a figure used for broader monitoring of labor-market conditions while the BLS releases are on hold.
The BLS had previously delayed major economic statistics during a record 43-day government shutdown last fall, the AP report said. Economists expected the January jobs report to show that employers added 80,000 jobs last month, up from 50,000 in December, but that estimate will not be tested publicly until the agency completes the schedule change it described.