As mentioned earlier in the week, the most significant point of this ordeal is that it means the Fed will not have an official labour market report to work with before their next policy decision on 10 December. Now, is it just all a ruse by the BLS in timing it so as to not reflect "better" numbers that might get in the way of a Fed rate cut next week? With the ongoing Trump politicisation of the Fed and the stats office, it wouldn't be the most surprising thing.
But as noted before this, the BLS did mention that "the delay in reporting has seen the establishment survey collection rate move up to a higher-than-usual 80.2% as businesses self-reported electronically during the shutdown". Low survey collection rates have accounted for major revisions to payrolls data in the past, so just keep that in mind.
In any case, traders are still pricing in ~85% odds of a Fed rate cut for December and that reads as a given at this point. So, one can reasonably expect Powell & co. to deliver one more rate cut in wrapping up the year before markets break for Christmas and the holiday season.
That means the only relevant US labour market data releases remaining this week will be from today. That being the Challenger job cuts and the weekly initial jobless claims.
