Since 1980, the federal government has shut down 11 times – sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for weeks. The longest was in late 2018, when Congress and the White House spent 35 days locked in a standoff over an appropriations bill. National parks close, paychecks pause, and agencies grind to a halt.
When the most recent government shutdown began on October 1st, all but one of the 2,055 employees at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) were sent home (though some have since been called back). This means no monthly Employment Situation Report. No JOLTS survey. No fresh unemployment numbers.
It’s an unplanned pause in a reporting ritual that goes back to the early 20th century.
The BLS published its first monthly study of employment and payrolls in 1915. Early on, these reports mostly tracked employment levels (as opposed to how many were looking for work, i.e., unemployment). This changed with the Great Depression, as policymakers and economists looked for better ways to measure the labor market. The census evolved, data improved, and statistical methods were refined. Over time, what we now know as the “Jobs report” formalized.
Now, on the first Friday of every month, the tradition continues. News outlets rush to publish the numbers. Markets move within minutes. Commentators discuss how “consensus estimates” differed from reported numbers, and what that means for the economy.
But in our opinion, most of this is a red herring. As we’ve written about before, every data point we read today is a reflection of decisions made weeks or months ago. And often, the data is later corrected (recall the 900,000 jobs wiped from the BLS books earlier this year). Yet these numbers shape headlines, policy debates, and business sentiment long before the truth has a chance to catch up.
That makes you wonder: do we react to the economy, or do we help create it? At a certain point, the feedback loop between data, decisions, and sentiment gets hard to untangle.
So when the data goes dark, don’t panic. Seek out more on the ground feedback (which we prefer to the hard data whether the government’s doors are open or closed). Ask hiring managers what they’re seeing. Talk to candidates about how they’re feeling. Observe what’s happening in real time.
Because the best understanding of the job market doesn’t always come from a spreadsheet. It comes from staying close to the action.
And, as always, keep reading Hiring Happens.
Until next time,
Your Spherion South Central WI & Northern IL team