Here’s one potential beneficiary of the government shutdown: all the alternative labor market indicators that are fighting for attention thanks to the data vacuum left by the shuttered Labor Department.
Every month ADP, the Conference Board, the National Federation of Independent Business and other outfits release their own measures of hiring and layoffs. But no matter how many press releases they send, none get nearly as much attention as that lavished upon the Labor Department’s official employment report, usually released on the first Friday of the month. The best these other organizations can usually hope for is that analysts will view them as good forecasts of the Labor Department’s closely watched report.
The Labor Department is not releasing its usually scheduled jobs report on Friday, however, because of the shutdown. Now all the alternative measures are increasing their press blasts (at least that is my impression, based on the state of my e-mail in-box), and other organizations like policy research groups are using the occasion to draw attention to their own metrics and reports.
The liberal Center for American Progress, for example, is having a press call Friday morning with “alternative jobs day data.†The Brookings Institution sent out an e-mail on Thursday about an economic model for forecasting the Labor Department’s official unemployment rate based on existing labor flows data.
Here are some other indicators released this week, in case you’re hungry for labor market data:
- Announced layoffs released by Challenger, Gray & Christmas
- NFIB Small Business Jobs Report
- Â Jobless claims (released by the Labor Department despite the shutdown, as they were collected earlier)
- SHRM Leading Indicators of National Employment
- The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine data series
- ADP National Employment Report
- Gallup’s Payroll to Population ratio
- Non-Manufacturing ISM Report On Business - employment index
- Manufacturing ISM Report on Business - employment index
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