Jobs report is latest shutdown casualty

With the U.S. government on partial shutdown, the Department of Labor's latest monthly report that reveals how many jobs were created in the past month — and indicates the nation's unemployment rate — will not be released as scheduled on Friday.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the jobs report on the first Friday of every month, but because its workers are not deemed “essential,” they joined the ranks of the 800,000 federal employees furloughed when Congress failed to reach a deal on the nation’s budget Monday night.

Policymakers and analysts anticipate the monthly report as an opportunity to assess how the country is doing with job creation, and the figures can affect financial markets in the United States and around the world.

"Economists and journalists will have some withdrawal pains" in the absence of this month's report, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

The government shutdown has led to a massive furlough of government employees — but they will not be tallied in the report’s unemployment statistics.

Although hundreds of thousands of furloughed workers qualify for unemployment benefits, their applications would be counted separately from the state unemployment benefits data.

The unemployment rate reflects only individuals who participate in the labor force — those who either have jobs or claim to be actively looking for them. Once a person stops looking for a job, he or she is no longer considered part of the labor force.

According to separate Labor Department statistics that were released last week, Friday's report was expected to show that the economy added 180,000 jobs in September, slightly more than August's modest figure, 169,000.

The unemployment rate was expected to remain at 7.3 percent.

Al Jazeera with wire services