\n \u201cIt\u2019s been like flying in fog without any instrumentation,\u201d said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody\u2019s Analytics.\n <\/p>\n
\n However, expect some choppiness when the air starts to clear.\n <\/p>\n
\n The very nature of the 43-day shutdown has created an unprecedented situation: Some datapoints were not gathered when they typically should have been, increasing the potential for big holes in what\u2019s expected to be already messy data.\n <\/p>\n
What major economic reports are outstanding?<\/p>\n
\n Since the government was dark for the entirety of October and the first dozen days of November, several reports that included data collected in September and scheduled to be released in the ensuing weeks were not delivered (with the exception of the Consumer Price Index<\/a>), nor was data collected for October (we\u2019ll get to that here shortly).\n <\/p>\n \n One of the first reports expected to be released could be the September jobs report, which was due October 3<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI think it\u2019s sitting on the shelf and just needs to be released,\u201d Zandi said. \u201cMaybe dust [the report] off and produce a press release; but I think it should be ready to go.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s possible that the September jobs report could be released as soon as next week, Kevin Hassett, the White House\u2019s top economic adviser, told reporters Thursday\ufeff, noting that the report has \u201calready been cooked\u201d (or ready for release).\n <\/p>\n \n Other major reports in the wings \u2013 likely in various stages of completion \u2013 include September data on real earnings, wholesale inflation, import and export prices, quarterly employment costs, annual consumer expenditures, retail sales, gross domestic product and consumer spending.\n <\/p>\n \n That remains to be seen.\n <\/p>\n \n The leading statistical agencies are in the process of updating their schedules for economic releases (a calendar set in place more than a year ago).\n <\/p>\n \n However, it\u2019s not as simple as plugging reports into different dates. Several releases are reliant on data from other series. For example, CPI and Producer Price Index data points feed in to the Fed\u2019s favored inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which in turn feeds in to GDP.\n <\/p>\n \n The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday posted a placeholder link<\/a> where revised release dates will be posted. As of Friday morning, it had yet to be updated.\n <\/p>\n \n On Friday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis \u2013 the statistical arm of the Commerce Department that estimates GDP and produces data on topics such as income, spending, foreign trade, and state and local economies \u2013 announced it is \u201cworking to update its schedule of economic releases\u201d and is consulting with the Census Bureau, BLS and other suppliers of data used to produce the BEA\u2019s indicators.\n <\/p>\n \n Each economic data series will be affected differently by the shutdown, depending on how, when and from whom the data is collected, said Erica Groshen, a former BLS Commissioner who serves as senior economics adviser at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, she noted, expect the BLS and other agencies to prioritize Principal Federal Economic Indicators<\/a>, which are about three dozen major statistical series used to describe the condition of the US economy. (The jobs report, CPI, PPI, and PCE are among these. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey<\/a>, for example, is not).\n <\/p>\n \n As it stands now, October 2025 could very well amount to a \u201clost\u201d month of data \u2013 or close to it.\n <\/p>\n \n During the shutdown, the nation\u2019s statistical agencies were run by skeleton crews as the actions of collecting, analyzing and disseminating data were suspended \u2013 disrupting finely tuned processes that have underpinned major economic reports for decades.\n <\/p>\n \n For example, the jobs report is composed by two surveys: one of businesses and one of households. The establishment survey is primarily automated and relies upon online portals for businesses to submit their information such as workforce levels and pay. The household survey, on the other hand, is largely conducted via telephone and in-person visits.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to ask people what their situation was five weeks ago, and it\u2019s bound to be unreliable,\u201d said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. \u201cI think part of the employment report for the month of October will be lost forever, and we will only get the data that is submitted by companies.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The household survey is what\u2019s used to generate labor force estimates and the unemployment rate, and since that wasn\u2019t conducted in October, \u201cwe\u2019re going to get half the employment report,\u201d Hassett said on Thursday<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ll get the jobs part, but we won\u2019t get the unemployment rate.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The lack of a complete monthly employment snapshot isn\u2019t ideal when the US labor market entered the shutdown on seemingly shaky ground; however, a rough picture of the trajectory could still be assembled using the payroll estimates combined with a smattering of private hiring data as well as state-level unemployment filings and layoff notices, wrote Mike Reid, senior US economist for RBC in a note Thursday.\n <\/p>\n \n The visibility on inflation<\/a> data for October will be \u201cparticularly bad,\u201d Reid noted.\n <\/p>\n \n Two-thirds of the pricing data that feeds in to the CPI is collected by in-person visits to brick-and-mortar stores, Reid said. Wholesale-level prices also were not collected in October for the Producer Price Index.\n <\/p>\n \n That will then ripple through to the PCE price index, where about 90% is constructed from CPI and PPI inputs, he added.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cUnlike the labor market, there are few (if any) reliable alternatives to the CPI report,\u201d he said. \u201cAbsent the CPI and PPI reports, it\u2019s hard to gauge inflation\u2019s trajectory.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n And if the October inflation data is released, it could pose a \u201cserious data quality issue,\u201d as it would likely lean more heavily on imputation<\/a>, a methodology that utilizes a variety of existing datapoints to capture missing information.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cBut we know that already when the statistical agencies have all the data available, there\u2019s a big degree of uncertainty, and sometimes the numbers are not statistically significant,\u201d EY-Parthenon\u2019s Daco told CNN. \u201cSo, with even less data, the statistical significance of these numbers is likely to drop even further.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The shutdown lasted through nearly half of November, meaning that this month\u2019s data also will not emerge unscathed, economists said. However, they also fully expect all major reports to be released.\n <\/p>\n \n There\u2019s a greater likelihood that inflation data will have a higher level of imputations, noted RBC\u2019s Reid. The timing and staffing levels of returning BLS employees also could impact the collection of data, including the household survey for the jobs report, said former BLS Commissioner Groshen.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cBLS has fewer resources this time, because it is down 20% in its staffing, one-third of its leadership positions are vacant, and it\u2019s possible they had even more people quit during the course of the shutdown,\u201d she said, referencing the Trump administration\u2019s large-scale layoff of federal workers earlier this year via the Department of Government Efficiency.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, while it\u2019s possible that the surveying of households in November could include questions for October, it\u2019s unlikely, she said, noting current staffing levels and the heft of the data backlog facing statistical agencies.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s a very highly orchestrated way that those interviews are conducted, so just even running surveys simultaneously is problematic,\u201d she said. \u201cI would not be surprised if the Census Bureau and BLS just decided that they can\u2019t run the October [household survey] again.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n If that\u2019s the case, it\u2019s possible that the BLS could estimate the October unemployment rate from the September and November data, she said.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cNoisy\u201d reports aren\u2019t out of the ordinary for major economic releases such as the jobs report. Large disruptions, including those considered relatively short term, have a way of leaving their mark on data for months (or, in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic, for years).\n <\/p>\n \n Entering into evidence are the October 2024 and November 2024 jobs reports.\n <\/p>\n \n In October 2024, a month impacted by two major deadly hurricanes and massive labor strikes, the initial employment snapshot showed a net gain of just 12,000 jobs<\/a> \u2013 a far cry from September\u2019s 223,000-job gain.\n <\/p>\n \n It was also a one-time blip.\n <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/gettyimages-2228505783.jpg\")
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