With No Jobs Report, Investors Turn to a 'Mosaic' of Sources

With the government's official jobs data on pause, economists and investors are turning to a patchwork of private reports and creative alternatives to track the pulse of America's job market.

• Payroll giant ADP is one substitute, tapping data from 26 million workers for its employment snapshots, the Wall Street Journal reports. Earlier this week, the company estimated that the US shed 32,000 jobs in September.

• Revelio Labs mines networking platforms like LinkedIn for insights on hiring, salaries, and turnover. In the company's first-ever jobs report, it estimates that the economy added 60,000 jobs in September, though it believes the Bureau of Labor Statistics' figure would have been 38,000. Revelio chief economist Lisa Simon says the company decided to put together a jobs report after President Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming the numbers had been manipulated to make him look bad.
• JPMorgan chief US economist Michael Feroli tells the Journal that he is tracking consumer and business surveys, along with data from jobs website Indeed. "You can pull these together to make a bit of a mosaic," he says. His verdict: "If we froze everything in time, I think you'd say this is a fine labor market, but the direction in which things are pointing suggests a risk that it could soften up further."

• The Journal notes that investors have long used private data to get a fuller picture of the jobs market, looking at everything from cardboard box demand to railcar loading and scrap metal prices. Vanguard watches 401(k) sign-ups as a sign of new hires; Bank of America monitors card spending to track retail health.
• The scramble for data comes as confidence in official reports has already taken a hit—survey response rates at BLS are falling and Trump's claims have fueled fears of political interference.
• Economists say these alternative sources are less about replacing the BLS and more about building a fuller, more resilient economic picture. As ADP chief economist Nela Richardson puts it, expect a future where official and private data together form a "portfolio of indicators" for a complex economy.

story continues below

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, is calling for the administration to release the jobs report despite the shutdown, CNN reports. "Let's be clear: the jobs data scheduled to come out this Friday has undoubtedly been collected and the President must release it," she said in a statement. "Without it, the Federal Reserve will not have the full picture it needs to make decisions this month about interest rates that will impact every family across the country."