Jobs report shock: American economy added a stunning 336,000 jobs in September

The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street on September 27 in New York City.

The S&P 500 logged its biggest one-day gain on Friday to cap off a turbulent trading day, after the latest jobs report revealed a surge in hiring last month.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained for the week, while the Dow fell. Still, all three major indexes are up for the year.

The US economy added 336,000 jobs last month, above economists’ expectations of 170,000 jobs.

Stocks initially sold off on the news, but staged a midday rally as investors continued to parse the data.

“Markets are recovering from this morning’s swoon as investors choose to focus on the positive areas within the payroll report,” José Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, wrote in a Friday note.

Average hourly earnings rose by 0.2% last month from August, below last year’s 4.2% increases. That’s below economists’ expectations of a monthly increase of 0.3% and annual uptick of 4.3%, according to Refinitiv.

Treasury yields also retreated from multi-year highs, easing the pressure on stocks.

The Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index inflation reports are set for release next week, and that data could be crucial for the Federal Reserve in deciding whether to pause or hike interest rates at its next policy meeting, which concludes November 1.

Friday’s jobs report did little to sway Wall Street’s opinion on what decision the Fed will make: Markets see a roughly 71% chance that the Fed holds rates steady at its next meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

The Dow rose 288 points, or 0.9%.

The S&P 500 gained 1.2%.

The Nasdaq Composite added 1.6%.

As stocks settle after the trading day, levels might change slightly.

United Auto Workers (UAW) members strike outside the General Motors Lansing Redistribution facility on September 23 in Lansing, Michigan.?

From actors to autoworkers, more than 450,000 workers have participated in 312 strikes in the United States this year, according to Cornell University’s Labor Action Tracker.?

Are all of these workers missing from the US government’s monthly jobs reports?

The report produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a product of two different surveys.?

One asks a sample group of employers to report how many workers they employed, based on their payroll records for the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. Data from that survey is used to determine how many people were hired or laid off in a given month.?

“If the striking workers earned pay for any part of the reference period, even one hour, they are counted as employed,” Cody Parkinson, an economist at the BLS, told CNN. “Striking workers are reflected as a subtraction from the employment level in the first monthly estimate when they are not working in the reference pay period. They are added back only when they return to work.”

That means that in the September jobs report, United Auto Workers members on strike are counted as employed since the strike began on September 15, which was during the reference week. But if the strike continues through the end of next week they will not be counted as employed in the October jobs report due next month unless they are on the payroll of a different employer.

Picketers demonstrate outside Paramount Pictures studio on September 27 in Los Angeles.

In contrast, the impact of the SAG-AFTRA strike, which began in July, showed up in some of the data that was included in the September jobs report.

“Employment in motion picture and sound recording industries continued to trend down (-7,000) and has declined by 45,000 since May, reflecting the impact of labor disputes,” the BLS noted in the September jobs report.?

In the case of the Writers Guild of America strike, which recently ended, many of the union members were contract workers or freelancers. So you wouldn’t be able to see the impact of strikes simply by looking at industry hiring data that comes from payroll data.?

However, there’s another survey used to construct the monthly jobs report that asks individuals if they worked in a given week. Data from that survey is used to calculate the unemployment rate. Since the survey captures almost all types of working arrangements, contractors and freelancers on strike would impact the data.?

The BLS classifies someone as unemployed “if they were not working but were available to work and actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks.”?

If the answer to that is no, they aren’t considered part of the labor force even if they are part of a striking union.?

If someone was on strike but earned money working a different way, like driving for Uber, during the reference period, they’d be counted as employed.?

Finally, “a worker who was on strike for the entire reference period and did not have a job would be counted as employed but not at work due to a labor dispute,” Parkinson said.

US stocks climbed Friday afternoon, with all three major indexes on track to gain for the week.

After starting the day lower, the Dow climbed 412 points, or 1.3%, by early afternoon and is on pace for its largest one-day gain since June.

The S&P 500 added 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.7%.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivered remarks on the September jobs report at the White House today.

President Joe Biden summed up the stronger-than-expected jobs report in three words on Friday.?

“Good news today,” Biden said as he approached the podium in the White House Press Room.?

He touted the stronger-than-expected September jobs report that showed hiring accelerated by 336,000 jobs last month. When noting an unemployment rate that has remained below 4% for 20 months in a row and labor force gains made by women, minorities and marginalized workers, Biden attributed the strength to his administration’s “Bidenomics” efforts.

“It’s no accident, it’s Bidenomics, we’re growing the economy from the middle out, the bottom up and not the top down,” Biden said during a press conference. “And inflation’s coming down at the same time.”

Biden specifically highlighted the employment growth in manufacturing, which added 17,000 jobs last month.

As of September, there were more than 13 million jobs in the manufacturing sector, BLS data shows. About 815,000 of those jobs were created since he took office, Biden said. ?

“My economic plan is bringing supply chains home and investing in industries of the future so we can make things in America again with American workers,” he said.?

Some key labor force metrics held steady during September: Average workweek hours were unchanged at 34.4 hours, indicating that employers were not cutting back on hours, and the overall labor force participation rate didn’t budge from 62.8%.

However, there was a slight step back in the labor force participation rate for women in their prime working age of 25 to 54 years old, the report showed. After setting an all-time high in June at 77.8%, that rate is now 77.4%, dropping 0.2 percentage points from August.?

“In future months, we are watching this number closely as expiring federal child care funding could sideline working mothers,” Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor’s lead economist, wrote in commentary issued Friday.

The federal pandemic-era child care stabilization grant program ended on September 30.?

The historic federal investment, which was part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act that Democrats passed in March 2021, supported more than 220,000 child care programs, affecting as many as 9.6 million children, according to the federal Administration for Children and Families.

Nationwide, more than 70,000 child care programs are projected to close, and about 3.2 million children could lose their spots due to the end of the child care stabilization grant program on September 30, according to an analysis by The Century Foundation.

— CNN’s Tami Luhby contributed to this report.

A server sets a table at a restaurant in San Francisco, California, in June.

Restaurant employment hit a milestone in September, exceeding pre-pandemic levels for the first time.?

Restaurants, bars and other food service outlets added a net 60,700 jobs in September, adjusted for seasonal swings, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.?

That puts restaurant jobs at roughly 30,000 above the February 2020 number, noted the National Restaurant Association, which has been tracking the numbers using data from the BLS.?

When bars and restaurants closed their doors in March 2020, many restaurant workers lost their jobs. When eateries reopened, some of them stayed away.?

Though the restaurant industry has largely bounced back, the landscape has shifted, with many restaurants focusing on pickup or delivery options, and some large chains experimenting with robots or AI that reduce their reliance on employees.

Data shows that there were fewer restaurants in 2022 than in 2019, and experts think that shrink may be permanent.?

Still, there is a need for more workers. According to the BLS’s most recent data on job openings, there were about 1.2 million openings in the accommodation and food services sector in August.?

JPMorgan Chase’s chief US economist said Friday that the hotter-than-expected jobs report is unlikely to change the Federal Reserve’s expected decision to pause interest rates in November.

But data showing a surprise increase in inflation could be what drives the central bank to raise rates, he added.

“If that happens, the already tenuous case for avoiding recession next year gets harder to make,” wrote Michael Feroli, JPMorgan Chase’s chief economist, in a note on Friday.

Markets see a roughly 68% chance that the Fed pauses rates in November, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. For December, the tool shows a 58% expectation of another pause.

The Producer Price Index and Consumer Price Index, two closely watched inflation gauges, are set to be released on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, next week.

All three major indexes turned positive late Friday morning as Treasury yields retreated from multi-year highs.

The Dow rose 308 points, or 0.9%. The S&P 500 gained 1% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.2%.

The 10-year Treasury yield edged lower to 4.769% after soaring to 4.858% following the hotter-than-expected jobs report, its highest level since 2007.

Still, the Dow and S&P 500 are on track for a losing week, after a surge in Treasury yields to their highest level in over a decade sent stocks tumbling earlier in the week. The Nasdaq Composite is on track to eke out a gain for the week.

A jobseeker and recruiter shake hands at the Cape Fear Community College's Business and IT Career Fair at Cape Fear Community College North Building in Castle Hayne, North Carolina, on Sept. 20.

Earlier this week, payroll processor ADP reported US private employers added 89,000 jobs in September. Meanwhile, on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 336,000 job gains.

Even with the 96,000 government job gains the BLS reported were added last month that aren’t captured in ADP’s data, there’s a sizable discrepancy between the two reports.

What gives?

ADP and the BLS produce different monthly estimates of how many jobs employers fill each month in part because they rely on different sources of data.

ADP, the nation’s largest private payroll processor, produces its monthly National Employment Report by analyzing internal payroll data that covers more than 25 million employees to determine how many new people were hired.

However, the BLS surveys about 122,000 employers, representing approximately a third of all nonfarm payroll jobs in the United States. Every month they ask the sample group of employers to report how many workers they employed, based on their payroll records for the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. Those responses are used to estimate total nonfarm employment in the country.

Read more here.

A "Now Hiring" sign is seen at a retailer looking for job applicants in Richland, Miss., on Sept. 6.

Federal data is fluid and frequently subject to change as more detailed and accurate information becomes readily available. Today’s headline jobs number — that surprising 336,000 net job gain — is an initial estimate that will be revised twice more.

Approaching Friday, economists told CNN they would be closely watching how the latest revisions would shake out, because every monthly job gain during the first half of the year was ultimately revised downward (a cumulative difference of 325,000 jobs), Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.

“Many are interpreting this streak of downward revisions as a sign that we could be at an inflection point and that the labor market could be weakening even more rapidly than the official data suggests,”?Julia Pollak, senior economist at ZipRecruiter, told CNN earlier this week.

The surprising September jobs report, however, didn’t continue that streak. July’s monthly gains (initially revised down by 30,000 jobs) saw an upward bump of 79,000 jobs this time around to bring the monthly gain to 236,000 positions. August’s second look has job growth now at 227,000 for the month, an increase of 40,000.

Still, she added, those latest revisions as well as the September surge do align with other recent economic data points, specifically strong consumer spending.

“The data is hard to capture, because the economy is moving much more rapidly,” Diane Swonk, KPMG’s chief economist, said in an interview with CNN Friday. “I talk to [executives] all the time, and one of the hardest issues they say about the post-pandemic economy is just how rapidly things shift.”

That’s the economy we’re in, she said, and it requires more agility.

“But at the end of the day, it’s still more resilient,” she said. “It’s remarkably resilient. And that’s a wonderful thing.”

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman?Jerome?Powell?on September 20 at the end of a press conference after the release of the last Fed policy decision to leave interest rates unchanged, at the Federal Reserve, in Washington.

Higher borrowing costs, coupled with easing wage gains, could give?Federal Reserve officials some room to pause on its rate hiking campaign this month.

Average hourly earnings rose by 0.2% in September from the prior month. From a year earlier, wages were up 4.2%. That was below economists’ expectations of a monthly uptick of 0.3% and annual increase of 4.3%, according to Refinitiv.

Fed?officials have to contend with the reality of more difficult financial conditions while acknowledging that the job market remains too hot for comfort – and inflation. There is a clear connection between the labor market’s tightness and?inflation.

“Not only does today’s report indicate the?economy?is almost too hot to handle and the?Fed?will need to respond with more rate hikes, it reinforces the higher for longer narrative that has been spooking bond markets for the past few weeks,” wrote Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, in an analyst note. “Markets want the perfect landing and instead they are facing an upward sloping path.”

Pedestrians pass the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve building in Washington, DC, on June 3.

The?Federal Reserve?has a complicated situation on its hands.

US hiring accelerated last month, with employers adding a robust 336,000?jobs. But Fed?officials have said they want to see the job market cool off to ensure that?inflation?is on track to reach the central bank’s 2% target.

The sharp pickup in hiring last month should mean that one last rate hike is coming at the?Fed’s two-day policy meeting coming up in just a few weeks.

Well, not so fast.

The recent sell-off in government bonds means that the US financial system will become more burdensome for American families and businesses.

The yield on the 30-year US Treasury bond rose above 5% this week for the first time since 2007, on the expectation that the?Fed?will keep?rates?higher for longer. Friday’s blockbuster?jobs?report pushed yields even higher.

US Treasuries are the benchmark used to price debt, so higher yields mean higher rates on everything from car loans to the cost of mergers and acquisitions. Raising rates even further could put Americans in an even tougher spot, financially.

So the Fed has a tough decision to make: The bond-market rout could cool the?economy?enough for the?Fed to hold rates steady. But the?economy?may be able to withstand another rate hike, because the job market is still running hot, threatening?inflation’s defeat.

Markets see a roughly 66% chance that the?Fed?will decide to hold rate steady again at its October 31-November 1 meeting, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

Ultimately, it’s the?inflation?data that will have the final say, but the central bank definitely has its work cut out for it.?

People walk past the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street on September 27.

Stocks recovered some of their losses Friday mid-morning after a huge upside surprise on the September jobs report.

The Dow fell 77 points, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 declined 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite was just barely positive.

The US economy added a whopping 336,000 jobs last month, blowing past economists’ expectation of 170,000 jobs.

“This will keep rates higher for longer and challenges the equity market soft-landing narrative,” said Matt Peron, director of research at Janus Henderson Investors.

Tech stocks initially fell as Treasury yields rose on the hotter-than-expected report, but rallied by mid-morning. Nvidia shares rose 0.3%, Meta Platforms shares added 0.4% and Alphabet gained 0.9%.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on October 04.

The stock market sent the Federal Reserve a strong message Friday morning after the US economy shocked investors by adding 336,000 jobs last month: Do. Not. Raise. Rates. (Please).

The Dow fell 100 points, or 0.3%.

The S&P 500 was down 0.5%.

The Nasdaq was 0.5% lower.

Investors are concerned that a surprisingly robust job market will give the Fed cover to continue its rate-hiking campaign to combat inflation without fear of sending the US economy into a recession.

But rate hikes eat into corporate profits, which weigh on stock prices.

Meanwhile, US Treasury yields continued to surge as bond investors expect the Fed to raises rates, which devalues bond prices. Yields rise when bond prices fall. The 10-year yield surged to 4.827%.

“Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls, the economy isn’t dying,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FwdBonds.

“Jobs jumped 336K in September with an incredible 119K of upward revisions to July and August. There is no recession. Bet on it. The stock market is. Stocks are tanking as they are afraid interest rates will have to stay higher for longer with Fed officials maybe needing to kick rates up another notch,” he wrote in commentary Friday.

But the “stranger than fiction” jobs report is confusing, Rupkey said, because wage growth was slower. Average hourly earnings rose by 0.2% in September, below expectations for an increase of 0.3%.

If job gains continued to be robust but wage gains did not ease off, that would be a problem for the Federal Reserve.

“But the decelaration of wages, even as demand for workers stays high, points toward a reserve of labor supply willing to be tapped,” said Nick Bunker, head of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab.

September’s jobs report caught many by surprise with 336,000 job gains.?Economists had forecast 170,000 jobs would be added.

So where did all these gains come from?

Leisure and hospitality saw the strongest job growth with 96,000 jobs added last month. That’s well above the average 61,000 monthly job gains the industry saw over the past 12 months, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But the industry that was particularly hard hit by the pandemic still hasn’t recovered, with employment remaining below February 2020 levels.

Behind leisure and hospitality, government and education and health care jobs saw the top gains. Both industries have been consistently leading job gains for several months.

Meanwhile, information was the only major industry to experience job losses last month. It shed 5,000 positions.

The US economy feels lousy for many people. A majority of Americans say President Joe Biden’s policies have made economic conditions worse, according to?a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

So you’d think some really, really, shockingly good news about the job market would give Americans’ spirits a boost.

It won’t. Here’s why: Inflation is still biting. Prices continue to rise faster than anyone would like. Although annual price increases aren’t in wild-runaway mode like they were when inflation was above 9% last year, inflation is still above 3%, which is higher than economists say is healthy.

When you see gas prices at $3.75 on average (and above $4 in plenty of places across the country), mortgage rates above 7% and at a 23-year high, food prices going up at the grocery store, and a restart to student loan payments for millions of Americans, a robust job market won’t make most people feel like the economy is strong.

In fact, a strong jobs market may ultimately make many Americans feel worse. How? The Federal Reserve is working to slow the economy by hiking interest rates — the only tool it has to fight inflation. A still-robust job market means the central bank could continue to increase rates without fear of sending the economy into a recession.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon repeated in recent weeks his fear that rates could go to 7%. Government bond yields are rising to multi-year highs in expectation that rates could go up — and loans pinned to those yields, including mortgages and credit card rates — are set to go up, too.

We should never cheer a bad job market. But a job market that has remained this healthy for this long really isn’t excellent news for average Americans struggling to pay their bills. Meanwhile, we remain in a “good news is bad news” conundrum that makes most people feel like the US economy is in a bad spot.

Commuters wait for a train at the Wonderland MBTA station in Boston, MA on July 5.

The US job market is still kicking off plenty of heat, with hiring surging by?a surprisingly high 336,000 positions?last month; however, wages are cooling off.

Average hourly earnings rose by 0.2% in September, bringing the annual gain to 4.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’?jobs?report?released Friday.

That lands below economists’ expectations for a monthly uptick of 0.3% and annual increase of 4.3%, according to Refinitiv.

September’s wage growth is the lowest seen monthly since February 2022 and year-over-year since June 2021, noted Andrew Patterson, Vanguard senior economist.

“Like most reports,?the Fed?will find things to like and dislike here,” Patterson wrote Friday. “Inflation?data will weigh heavily this month ahead of [the?Fed’s next meeting on October 31 and November 1].”

The?Federal Reserve?has wanted to see an easing in labor market activity?and, especially, wage growth?as those fuel consumer demand and could put upward pressure on?inflation.

Inflation?gauges closely tracked by the?Fed?have cooled significantly since hitting highs last year; however, they’ve been easing at a slower pace in recent months, thanks in part to a pickup in gas prices.

Still, cooling?inflation?has helped Americans?finally see real wage growth?in recent months.

A 'Join Our Team' sign is displayed outside a Chipotle location on June 2, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.?

September’s job gains blew expectations out of the water.

At 336,000, it’s the largest monthly employment gain since January and is significantly above August’s net gain of 227,000 jobs, which was revised up by 40,000 from initial estimates.

Job growth to end the summer was hotter than initially thought: In addition to August’s upward revisions, July’s gains were revised up by 79,000 to 236,000.?

In September, leisure and hospitality helped drive job growth higher, with 96,000 jobs added. That’s above the pace of 61,000 jobs a month that this sector has seen during the past 12 months, according to the BLS report.?

The unemployment rate held steady at 3.8% in August, and the number of unemployed workers was essentially unchanged at 6.4 million.

Consensus estimates from economists were for 170,000 net jobs added and a jobless rate of 3.7%, according to Refinitiv.

While September marks the 33rd consecutive month of job growth for the United States, the Federal Reserve has been aiming to slow the economy and cool down the labor market.

Dow futures tumbled by more than 200 points on the news, with futures on the S&P and Nasdaq falling by around 1% and 2%, respectively, as traders anticipated an additional rate hike from the Federal Reserve.

The resiliency of the labor has helped to keep consumer spending strong and the economy churning, but Fed officials have expressed concern that could be too much of a good thing and put upward pressure on inflation.?

The New York Stock Exchange is seen during morning trading on October 04.

US stock futures tumbled Friday morning after the September jobs report data was released, with Dow futures tumbling by more than 200 points and futures on the S&P and Nasdaq falling by around 1% and 2%, respectively.

Treasury yields surged, with the 10-year approaching a 16-year high again as investors anticipated another rate hike from the Federal Reserve as it battles to cool an economy and labor market that continue to show resilience despite 11 rate hikes since March 2022.

Construction workers build a residential high rise on October 02, 2023 in Miami, Florida.?

US job growth heated up in September, adding 336,000 positions, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last month’s job gains were far higher than expected and above August’s total of 227,000.

While September marks the 33rd consecutive month of job growth for the United States, the?Federal Reserve?has been aiming to slow the?economy?and cool down the labor market.

An attendee fills out job applications at a Novant Health Career Fair at NC Works in Wilmington, North Carolina, in April.

For much of the past 18 months, the unemployment rate has drifted between 3.4% and 3.7%, a historically low range that stood in defiance to the barrage of Federal Reserve interest rate hikes and expectations for increased joblessness.

In August, the unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped 0.3 percentage points to 3.8%. And while monthly data and the unemployment rate itself can be quite volatile, a driver behind the increase was a welcome one: an increase in labor force participation.

“How much of that was noise?” said Nick Bunker, head of economic research for the Indeed Hiring Lab, adding that if monthly job gains remain north of 100,000, “how many more [people] can that pull into the labor force?”

Labor force participation plummeted during the early stages of the pandemic, but during the past year, more people have returned to the labor force.

The overall labor force participation rate rose to 62.8% in August, BLS data shows. That’s the highest it’s been since the onset of the pandemic.

How much higher it can climb is unknown: Even before Covid was in play, labor force participation was trending downward, largely due to the massive Baby Boomer generation aging out of the workforce.

“Can job openings drop and labor force participation rise at the same time?” Bunker asked, noting that the latter likely “doesn’t have enough power to fight back against the extremely powerful force of demographics.”

People walk past the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street on September 27 in New York City.

US stock futures are slightly higher Friday morning — but that could all change at 8:30am ET when the jobs report is due. Investors have been especially sensitive lately to data that paints the picture of a resilient US economy. Strong reports have lifted soaring bond yields and raised the specter of a more aggressive Federal Reserve.

Stocks closed relatively flat on Thursday as bond yields dipped and traders shifted their focus to key labor market data out on Friday morning. The upcoming jobs report could provide insight about whether the Fed will keep interest rates higher for longer at their policy meeting later this month.?

Friday’s jobs report is expected to show that?170,000 jobs were added to the economy in September (that’s a cooling from the estimated 187,000 net gain in August) and that the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.7% from 3.8% the month prior.?

The numbers come after a week of mixed data, painting an unclear picture of the labor market.?

On Tuesday, the JOLTS report showed that the number of available jobs unexpectedly rose higher in August. That caused a market plunge.?The Dow lost 454 points, or 1.3%, notching its biggest decline since March and turning negative for 2023. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped 1.4% and 1.9% respectively.?

A day later, ADP’s national employment report showed that private-sector employers scaled back their hiring efforts far more than expected.?

While a strong jobs report is seen as a sign of a strong economy and a good thing for Main Street, it exacerbates anxiety on Wall Street that the Fed will continue its aggressive interest rate hikes to rein in inflation.?

Treasury yields, meanwhile, pulled back from their highest levels since 2007 following the release of the data. The 10-year fell to 4.71% after reaching 4.8% on Tuesday.?

—CNN’s Matt Egan contributed to this report.

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his "Bidenomics" economic agenda at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland, on September 14.

President Joe Biden is expected to tout what the White House is calling the “unprecedented turnaround in America’s manufacturing leadership” and?“our strong jobs market thanks to Bidenomics” when he speaks at the White House Friday morning – as?job creation has shown signs of slowing and?the White House tries to combat negative polling on Biden’s handling of the economy.?

Biden will give remarks on jobs day and National Manufacturing Day and kick off the third Investing in America tour, White House Assistant Press Secretary Michael Kikukawa said in a statement.?

The White House has been pushing the “Bidenomics” message for months – even as the economy has showed signs of possible strain due to high interest rates, nationwide labor strikes, and student loan repayments starting up for the first time in more than three years less than a week ago.?

According to?a Marquette Law School survey?released Thursday, the message?is?not?yet?resonating with Americans.

Among all registered voters, half (50%) say former President Donald Trump would do a better job of handling inflation, with 27% saying Biden would, and the rest trusting neither candidate on the issue or seeing little difference between the two.

Trump also holds substantial leads on trust to handle the economy (52% trust Trump more, 28% trust Biden more) and job creation (49% Trump, 30% Biden).

The US Capitol seen in Washington, DC, on September 26, 2023.?

This time last week, the prospects seemed to be?growing dimmer?that the September jobs report would land this Friday as planned.

A government shutdown would have forced the Bureau of Labor Statistics?to go dark?and result in the blackout of?critical economic data.

But after?a last-minute deal in Washington, the key labor market data is now set to flow as it should.

Whether it ultimately meets expectations is another question entirely.

A We're Hiring Now sign advertising job openings is viewed outside a KFC restaurant, Monday, Oct. 2, 2023, in Tampa, Fla.

At 8:30am ET, economists are forecasting that US employers added 170,000 jobs last month, according to Refinitiv data.

While that is a definite?step back from the?estimated 187,000 jobs added in August, it’s only slightly below pre-pandemic levels. From 2010 to 2019, the US added 183,000 jobs per month on average.

Economists also estimate that the unemployment rate will inch back down to 3.7% from 3.8%.

“The labor market still is solid,” Nela Richardson, chief economist with payroll processor ADP, told CNN in an interview. “It’s slowing, but there is no indication that it’s breaking.”

Read more here.

United Auto Workers members walk the picket line at the Ford Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan, on September 18.

While Friday’s report will deliver a host of critical info about the nation’s job market, one of the biggest stories in labor might not be fully on display.

There are more than 25,000?United Auto Workers union members on strike?at Detroit’s Big Three automakers of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, and more than 3,300 members?have been laid off or furloughed to date.

While some of the impacts are starting to be seen at local workforce centers and in state unemployment claims, the effects of the UAW strike will be largely muted in Friday’s jobs report, economists say.

The UAW strike?started on September 15, which is at the tail end of the reference periods for both of the surveys that make up the monthly employment report. The reference periods for the household and establishment surveys are generally the calendar week that includes the 12th day of the month and the pay period that includes the 12th day of the month, respectively.

Workers who worked or received pay for that pay period, even if it’s just for 30 minutes, are counted as employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We won’t see the direct impact probably until the October [jobs] report,” Bunker told CNN.

Separately, the?SAG-AFTRA strike?involving 16,000?actors?should not have a noticeable impact on the information sector, as striking employees were already counted as unemployed in the August jobs report, noted Lydia Boussour, EY’s senior economist.

“Overall, there were only 1,700 net new workers on strike in September, according to the latest BLS strike report,” she said.

Still, the UAW strike could have ripple effects on employment outside of the Big Three as other companies within, or ancillary to, the auto industry could lay off workers as a result of slowing or canceled orders.