As you may recall, the September Jobs Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics didn’t come out on the first Friday of the next month as it usually does thanks to the government shutdown. So it came out today, and showed anemic growth with 148,000 net new jobs (with revisions of the previous two months that netted out at a 9,000 gain). The unemployment rate edged down again to 7.2%, with labor-force participation generally unchanged.
This marginally positive report will likely again keep the Fed’s plans for “tapering” monetary stimulus on hold. The next jobs report will obviously show the impact of the government shutdown and the associated plunge in business and consumer confidence.
