Companies' Reports Are No More Reassuring on Jobs

With official labor statistics absent during the federal shutdown, Wall Street is sifting through alternative sources—and the signals aren't rosy. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and private equity giant Carlyle Group all see a cooling US job market, with rising unemployment and fewer positions being added. Carlyle's own company data points to 17,000 jobs gained in September, slipping from August's already sluggish 22,000, the Wall Street Journal reports. Goldman's labor-market tightness gauge, meanwhile, has dropped to levels last seen nearly a decade ago.

These private company figures aren't necessarily perfect—each covers only a slice of the workforce, and they don't always line up with official data. But given recent big revisions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is grappling with declining survey response rates, market watchers are paying extra attention to a patchwork of nongovernment reports. Jake Oubina at Piper Sandler says the picture is clear: Hiring has slowed, profit margins are squeezed by tariffs, and companies are wary about adding staff. "The employment numbers have clearly deteriorated," Oubina says.

Still, the damage isn't universal—state unemployment claims remain low, and job-cut announcements actually dipped in September, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. And a drop in immigration also means fewer new jobs are needed to keep unemployment stable. That said, the job market's chill is showing up in varied ways. A survey by the Institute for Supply Management of supply-chain executives found services employment shrank for the fourth month in a row. "There is nothing showing we're going to change trajectory," said Chair Steve Miller, per Quartz.