The government releases its monthly reading on jobs and unemployment Friday morning, one of the most closely watched economic indicators.
Here’s what you need to know about the September report, which is due out at 8:30 a.m. ET.
It’s likely to be “bad.” Economists expect the report will show employers added only 90,000 in the month. That’s well below the average growth of 175,000 jobs a month so far this year. But don’t worry too much about the slow down — economists expect it to be short-lived.
Blame Harvey and Irma. The two hurricanes that hit Houston and Florida in the last six weeks will have a big impact on the numbers. There are 11 million people with jobs in the counties that were declared disaster areas due to the storm. But many businesses were closed, so the Labor Department likely had trouble contacting many of the employers that it normally surveys to come up with the jobs estimates.
Unemployment will stay low. Most economists are forecasting that unemployment will stay at 4.4%, although some expect it to edge up to 4.5% due to the hurricanes. Either way, that’s close to what most economists consider to be full employment. It will also mark the 25th straight month that unemployment came in at or below 5%.
Trump likely to fall further behind Obama. Employers added 1.2 million jobs during Donald Trump’s first seven months in office, compared to 1.4 million jobs added during President Obama’s last seven months in office. That gap is likely to grow even wider due to the hurricane weakness in this jobs report.