Job seekers speak with recruiters during the SacJobs Career job fair in Sacramento, California, USA, on Thursday, November 13, 2025.
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release nonfarm payrolls for September on Thursday, ending the lockdown-induced hold on official employment data, albeit with a decidedly underhanded view.
The release, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, is expected to show an increase of 50,000 jobs in the public and private sectors, up from the 22,000 originally reported in August, but still indicating a weak labor market.
Although the report will be retrospective, it will at least provide some fodder for investors, economists and Federal Reserve officials who had to rely on a variety of private alternative data during the record-long lockdown in Washington, DC. It will be the first BLS jobs report since its release in August on September 5th.
“I feel that both the September report and the revisions for July and August suggest a slightly better outlook than commonly thought, but not much to brag about,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM. “The job market is holding out, as is the economy.”
A week after the end of the government blockade, data is also expected to show an unemployment rate of 4.3%, while average hourly wages rose 0.3% for the month and 3.7% compared to a year ago. According to Dow Jones consensus estimates, all numbers are unchanged from August.
Since the numbers are from September, they will be of little help to policymakers trying to navigate a difficult environment and could be ignored by markets. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell recently described the situation as “driving in a fog” and warned against seeing further rate cuts as guaranteed while officials look for direction.
While one month’s jobs report will clarify some things, visibility will remain limited.
“Ubiquitous uncertainty”
The BLS updated its release dates for the data points it produces on Wednesday.
The office will not release the October jobs report separately, but will instead attach it to the November report, which has been pushed back to Dec. 16 from its original Dec. 5 release date. No unemployment rate will be released for October because the BLS cannot collect household data. Likewise, the Job Vacancies and Workforce Turnover Survey will be released on December 9 in a combined release for September and October.
On October 24, the BLS released the September Consumer Price Index report only because it serves as a benchmark for Social Security cost-of-living adjustments.
“The economy is going through a period of pervasive uncertainty,” Brusuelas said. “Due to the duration of the shutdown, I do not believe that we will receive a clear statement about the situation on the labor market before the beginning of February.”
However, other data, such as ADP’s private payroll records, layoff announcements from employment agencies Challenger, Gray & Christmas, and a variety of other indicators provide clues to the state of the labor market.
In fact, in a speech on Monday, Fed Governor Christopher Waller dismissed the notion that the Fed doesn’t have enough data to make decisions.
“Policymakers and forecasters are not ‘flying blind’ or ‘in a fog,'” Waller said in a speech supporting a rate cut in December. “While it is always nice to have more data, as economists we are able to use all available data to formulate forecasts.”
According to data released so far, Goldman Sachs has a higher-than-consensus estimate that 80,000 jobs were added in September, but expects a decline of 50,000 in October, largely due to the expiration of the federal government’s program to defer resignations due to cuts related to Elon Musk’s Ministry of Government Efficiency.
“While we do not expect the Bureau of Labor Statistics to report an unemployment rate for October, we believe it would likely have increased, reflecting upward pressure from work stoppages and increasing broader measures of labor market slack,” Goldman economists Ronnie Walker and Jessica Rindels said in a note.
In addition to the September headline, Thursday’s report will also include revisions for July and August. Both Brusuelas and Goldman economists said they expect those numbers to be higher than previous counts.
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