Jobs data, again, was not released on Friday as the record-long government shutdown has resulted in a lack of official data on the labor market as well as a host of other important indicators. Had the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly nonfarm payrolls report, economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect it would have shown a decline of 60,000 jobs and an unemployment rate increase to 4.5%.
Other data points collected over the past several weeks paint a broad mosaic of a weak though not collapsing labor market.