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Jobs Friday<\/a> won’t be happening again this week as the record-long government shutdown<\/a> has resulted in a lack of official data on the labor market as well as a host of other important indicators.<\/p>\n In the absence of critical data points, alternative data is the only game in town when it comes to measuring current conditions. In a nutshell, various metrics show the U.S. labor market appears to be plodding along, with a sharp slowdown in hiring and scattered signs of an increase in layoffs.<\/p>\n Had the Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a> released its monthly nonfarm payrolls report for October, economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect it would have shown a decline of 60,000 jobs and an unemployment rate increase to 4.5%.<\/p>\n Other data points collected over the past several weeks paint a broad mosaic of a weak, though not collapsing, labor market that policymakers are viewing with a wary eye.<\/p>\n “We’re in an unusual environment, which is this low-hiring, low-firing, environment,” Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, told CNBC in a Thursday interview.<\/a> “That characterizes periods of high uncertainty, when businesses have pulled back.”<\/p>\n Though the timing was a coincidence, the Chicago Fed in October unveiled its own menu of data indicators<\/a>. An update Thursday showed little change in the unemployment rate, edging toward 4.4%, still a low number by historical standards, as well as layoffs and the hiring rate.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, though, there are signs of potential trouble, though not of a systemically weak labor market.<\/p>\n A look at alt data<\/p>\n Here’s a quick glimpse at a handful of other metrics various data collectors have released recently:<\/p>\n Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsZoom In IconArrows pointing outwards<\/p>\n Small businesses hit<\/p>\n The Homebase data points to another trend, in which larger firms are continuing to add workers but smaller businesses have largely bowed out.<\/p>\n “The story now for 12 months has been one of small business conservatism, and I don’t think that’s changed in aggregate,” Homebase CEO John Waldmann said in an interview. “Businesses are choosing to have fewer people and have them work more hours. That generally is a conservative stance in how to operate a small business.”<\/p>\n The ADP numbers have showed a steady erosion in employment for smaller firms. Businesses employing fewer than 250 people lost 34,000 workers in October. On the year, businesses with fewer than 50 people have added 133,000 workers, but most of that came in earlier months.<\/p>\n However, while there’s only scant signs of growth, there are also few indicators of the aggressive layoffs that would signal a broader economic downturn.<\/p>\n Though the Labor Department isn’t aggregating weekly jobless claims data during the shutdown, state-level filings show a fairly steady pattern.<\/p>\n A “We Are Hiring” sign at the Appalachian State University internship and job fair in Boone, North Carolina, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. <\/p>\n Allison Joyce | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n Goldman Sachs estimates that claims would have totaled 228,000 last week, an increase of 9,000 but largely in line with recent trends.<\/p>\n “We’re showing a cooling labor market … but certainly not a collapsing labor market,” added David Tinsley, senior economist at the Bank of America Institute. “Some of this cool down we’ve seen in jobs growth is being borne particularly by small businesses.”<\/p>\n For policymakers like Goolsbee, the Chicago Fed president, the data also is suggestive of a fairly stable jobs picture.<\/p>\n\n
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