WASHINGTON — The Labor Department will release its numbers on September hiring and unemployment next Thursday, a month and a half late, marking the beginning of the end of a data drought caused by the 43-day federal government shutdown.
The statistical blackout meant that the Federal Reserve, businesses, policymakers and investors have largely been in the dark about inflation, job creation, GDP growth and other measures of the U.S. economic health since late summer.
Thomas Simons and Michael Bacolas at Jefferies, a financial firm, wrote in a commentary Friday that over 30 reports from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau were delayed by the political standoff.
The Labor Department did not release its weekly report on the number of Americans signing up for unemployment benefits for seven straight weeks. That jobless claims report is seen as a potential early indicator of where the labor market is headed.
The Labor Department did release its consumer price index for September — the most popular measurement of inflation — nine days late on Oct. 24. The government made an exception for that report because of its urgency: It is used to calculate the annual cost of living adjustment for tens of millions of Americans receiving Social Security and other federal benefits.
The interruption of federal economic statistics came at an awkward time. President Donald Trump’s policies — sweeping, ever-changing import taxes and massive deportations of people working in the United States illegally — are creating uncertainty about the economic outlook.
And the economy has sent conflicting signals: Economic growth looked solid at midyear and unemployment has been low. But job growth has lost momentum, and inflation has re