US: Lack of Labor Market Data Due to Government Shutdown – Investors Seek Alternative Indicators

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• Investors rely on private data (ADP, ISM, Conference Board), but correlations with official figures are weak.
• Alternative indicators suggest slower hiring, not a collapse.
• The Fed is likely to stay cautious with future rate cuts.

The third week of the partial shutdown of the U.S. federal government is increasingly disrupting access to official economic data. The suspension of key reports makes it more difficult for the Federal Reserve to assess the economic situation as it prepares for the upcoming FOMC meeting scheduled for October 28–29. In this environment, investors and analysts are attempting to replace government statistics with private-sector indicators — though their reliability remains limited.

Limited Access to Data and the Fed’s Policy Challenges

Due to the ongoing stalemate in Congress, many federal agencies, including statistical offices, have been closed since October 1. This has resulted in the suspension of several crucial releases, including employment reports. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) plans to publish consumer inflation data on October 24, albeit with a one-week delay. For the Federal Reserve, this situation represents a significant obstacle to evaluating the state of the economy — especially the labor market, which currently shows signs of fragility.

Private Data Sources – Limited Informational Value

• ADP: The ADP report, based on payroll data from 26 million private-sector employees, showed that U.S. private employers cut 32,000 jobs in September, marking the latest sign that the labor market is entering a significant slowdown. By sector, the largest losses were recorded in service-providing industries, including leisure and hospitality as well as business services, where employment fell by 28,000 positions. Moreover, the real-time correlation between ADP data and official BLS figures remains very weak at 0.12, indicating no statistically meaningful relationship. As a result, the ADP report provides limited insight into what the official employment report might have shown had the government not been shut down.
  
• ISM Indices: The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing and services surveys suggest a slowdown in hiring, with both employment components remaining below the neutral 50-point threshold. In September, the employment subindex for the services sector stood at 47.2 points, while the manufacturing employment subindex came in at 45.3 points — both signaling contraction in hiring activity. While the manufacturing employment index shows a moderate correlation (0.6) with employment dynamics, its volatility and discrepancies with actual data limit its predictive reliability.

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Chart of U.S. employment change – ADP vs. NFP, source: Bloomberg

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ISM employment subindices for the U.S., source: Bloomberg

Sentiment Indicators and Predictive Models

• Conference Board: The gap between the share of respondents who believe that “jobs are plentiful” and those who say they are “hard to get” (known as the labor market differential) is highly correlated with the unemployment rate. This metric has recently declined, signaling a deterioration in consumer sentiment and suggesting possible softening in the labor market over the coming months.
  
• Chicago Fed: The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago continues to publish its own unemployment rate estimates based on models incorporating both public and private data. According to the latest (not yet officially released) estimates, the unemployment rate stood at 4.34 percent in September — only slightly higher than August’s 4.32 percent. However, the historical accuracy of this model has been limited.
  

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Chicago Fed Real-Time Unemployment Rate (September 2025), source: chicagofed.org

The Labor Market Is Slowing, Not Collapsing

While alternative indicators provide some insight into current economic conditions, they cannot fully replace official data, which remain methodologically consistent and historically comparable. The available private data suggest a moderation in hiring momentum rather than a sharp downturn. The U.S. labor market thus appears to be entering a phase of gradual cooling rather than contraction — a scenario that may encourage the Federal Reserve to proceed cautiously with further interest rate cuts in the months ahead.

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