Labor Report Due Friday on Schedule

Labor Report Due Friday on Schedule

By ANNIE LOWREY

Published: October 31, 2012

WASHINGTON — The October jobs report — the most hotly anticipated piece of economic data left to be released before the election — will come out as scheduled on Friday morning, the government said Wednesday.

Hurricane Sandy had shuttered government offices on Monday and Tuesday, threatening to delay the release of the monthly jobs numbers. That led to hand-wringing in the presidential campaigns and even some accusations that the Obama administration might delay the numbers for its political benefit.

But a Labor Department spokesman said Wednesday in an e-mail message that the report would come out as planned, at 8:30 a.m. E.T. on Friday.

Economists expect the jobs figures to show slow, steady employment growth, the product of an anemic but persistent recovery, with the unemployment rate remaining about where it is in the coming months, with employers adding workers too slowly to pull the overall jobless rate down further.

Last month, the unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent, the lowest since President Obama took office. Regardless of the results, the numbers will immediately become headline fodder for an Obama campaign looking to trumpet a 25th consecutive month of job growth and a Romney campaign looking to underscore the historical weakness of the recovery and the failure of Mr. Obama’s economic policies.

Economists estimate that the report will show that the economy added around 100,000 jobs in October, though there is a large margin of error in any given report. Of late, the economy has been adding jobs at a pace of about 90,000 a month.

Recent economic data have been mixed, with manufacturing and exports showing significant weakness but consumer spending and confidence on the rise.

U.S. Labor Report Due Friday on Schedule - NYTimes.com