Labor Department delays January jobs report because of partial shutdown

Audio By Carbonatix

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Labor Department, citing the partial federal government shutdown, said Monday that it will not release the January jobs report on Friday as scheduled.

In a statement, the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said: “Once funding is restored, BLS will resume normal operations and notify the public of any changes to the news release schedule.’’ It is also postponing the December report on job openings, which was supposed to come out Tuesday.

The jobs report and other key economic statistics were previously delayed by a record 43-day government shutdown last fall.

Economists had expected the January jobs report to show that employers added 80,000 jobs last month, up from 50,000 in December.

The delay in data comes at a bad time. The economy is in a puzzling place.

Growth is strong: Gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — advanced from July through September at the fastest pace in two years.

But the job market is sluggish: Employers have added just 28,000 jobs a month since March. In the 2021-2023 hiring boom that followed COVID-19 lockdowns, by contrast, they were creating 400,000 jobs a month.

Economists are trying to figure out if hiring will accelerate to catch up to strong growth or if growth will slow to match weak hiring, or if advances in artificial intelligence and automation mean that the economy can roar ahead without creating many jobs.