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So that’s a relief! Today we got old news — the September jobs report, a much-delayed release of data from the BLS following the government shutdown. It showed a surprising bounce-back of 119,000 jobs. We learned that the pre-shutdown job market wasn’t collapsing (as we’ve said before).
Let’s not bury the lede: this September gain is better-than-expected, the best since April. The unemployment rate ticked up slightly, to 4.4% from 4.3% in August. There were downward revisions to July and August numbers, totaling 33,000 jobs. Now August, as well as June, have had negative employment changes — in other words, job losses. The 3-month moving average through September stands at over 62,000. That’s about half the pace seen