The monthly ADP unemployment report is out this morning, indicating the economy added 166,000 jobs in September. With the federal government shut down, the monthly figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics won't be coming out as scheduled on Friday, so this may be the only jobs indicator we have for a while.
Automatic Data Processing, a private firm, measures only the jobs added in the private sector, which is one reason its figures tend to differ from the BLS numbers. The public sector has been shedding jobs in recent months; factoring that in, September looks like a fairly normal month for job growth, although at the lower end of what we've seen recently as "normal." ADP doesn't release an overall unemployment rate, so for the moment, we can assume that stays at 7.3 percent.
The BLS, with many of its workers furloughed, has already announced it would not be releasing its customary economic reports during the shutdown. It's not clear if and when we'll ever get an "official" report on September's employment figures. For now, the markets will clearly be paying more attention to the ADP report.
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