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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.
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