Will the recent government shutdown show up in the jobs report?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its January jobs report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, Feb. 1. Here’s what you need to know:
- The consensus is for 158,000 jobs to be added to the economy, compared to 312,000 jobs in December; unemployment holding at 3.9 percent; and average hourly earnings to be up 3.2 percent year over year
- The 800,000 federal employees who were working without pay, or not working at all, will not be counted as unemployed
- Furloughed workers might have identified as “absent” or “not in the labor force,” two categories that do not add to the unemployment rate
- Some federal employees found other work
- Bottom line: The shutdown might barely show in the jobs report
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