Tuesday's jobs report will kick off a weeklong flurry of economic reports that had been delayed by the federal government shutdown.
But don't expect the flood of data to paint a clear picture of the state of the U.S. economy.
Federal statistical offices stopped collecting data for more than a month during the shutdown, the longest such interruption since records began. This created a gap that cannot be completely closed afterwards. Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve Chairman, warned last week that policymakers needed to treat the latest data, which will reflect events in November, with caution.
“We will get data, but we have to look at it carefully and with a somewhat skeptical eye,” Powell said, adding that it “could be distorted by very technical factors.”
This is a particularly bad time for policymakers to paint such a blurry picture. Employment growth slowed to a minimum over the summer, and data from private sources suggest that weakness continued into the fall. But economists remain uncertain whether the labor market has merely cooled or whether it has deteriorated dramatically.
November data, which will include an updated unemployment rate, will be closely examined for clues in either direction. But the report likely won't provide a definitive answer, said Tom Porcelli, chief economist at Wells Fargo.
“If people are looking for clarity in the job market, I think they will be a little disappointed,” he said.
The monthly jobs report is based on two surveys, one of employers and one of households. The biases primarily affect the household survey, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, labor force participation rate and related measures.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics was unable to conduct the October survey because of the shutdown and collected November data later than usual. In a fact sheet posted on its website Monday, the agency said its estimates of the unemployment rate and other measures would be subject to greater uncertainty than usual in November and, to a lesser extent, in the coming months.
“People's memories are a little fuzzier,” said Guy Berger, a labor economist who closely tracks employment data, when asked about his past activities. “It causes some noise.”
The survey of employers, which is the source for estimating payroll positions gained or lost each month, should not be affected as much because companies can use their records to see how many employees they had on payroll in a given period. The figures released Tuesday include employment and income estimates for both October and November.
But wage and salary numbers have been difficult to interpret in recent months as the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration has reduced the number of available workers. So economists are currently unsure about what constitutes a healthy pace of job growth, leading many of them to pay more attention than usual to the unemployment rate.
Consumer price data that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release on Thursday could also be distorted by delays in data collection. The agency will not release estimates of monthly inflation in November because no data was collected at all in October.
So this week's data is likely to do little to resolve the deep disagreement that has divided the Fed in recent months over the best course of action on interest rates. Officials are divided over the economic outlook and whether they should be more worried about a weakening labor market or increased inflation.
The Fed cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point at its meeting last week, but the decision was unusually contentious, with several officials signaling they would have preferred to keep rates stable and one voting for an even deeper cut. Mr. Powell said last week that the central bank was now “well positioned to see how the economy performs,” suggesting that the Fed is most likely preparing to stand still at its next meeting in late January unless there are clear signs that the labor market is at risk.
Many Fed officials, including Mr. Powell, do not appear to be as concerned about price pressures related to President Trump's tariffs and instead expect inflation to gradually drift back toward the central bank's 2 percent target over the course of the year.
Before that point, officials will receive another round of economic reports, and that data should be comparatively free of biases related to the shutdown. That means the December jobs report, due out in early January, will likely be more important than the November data in shaping policymakers' view of the economy.