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One of several effects of the longest government shutdown in history that’s clouding our economic outlook is the shuttering of the agencies that provide economic and employment data. With that flow of information closed since September, private sector observers have stepped up with their own statistics to offer business leaders a better idea of where things are headed. But no end in sight for the federal work stoppage, the job figures released this week by a variety of companies may actually create more confusion than clarity. This week the government shutdown entered its second month, leaving legions of federal workers unpaid, disrupting services from air traffic control to food stamp distribution. It also continued preventing the Bureau of Labor Statistics from producing its regular monthly jobs reports. The agency’s last official data in September showed companies had pinched off recruitment to almost nothing beyond replacing departing workers. That cautious staffing strategy by businesses that have hesitated to hire since spring amid economic uncertainty meant a monthly average of only 26,750 positions were created between May through August, when just 22,000 openings were filled. Since that time, companies have had to rely on statistics and analyses from private sector actors as they try to figure out how the labor market and broader economy are performing. A new wave of data released this week may leave some business leaders more cross-eyed than clearsighted. On the positive side, payroll services company ADP said that its customers’ data indicated U.S. businesses increased headcounts by 42,000 in October. That number was a decided improvement over the 34,000 net job losses ADP reported in September, after a decrease of 3,000 in August. But it’s still a fraction of the average 180,000 hires per month in 2024, and even less than the 64,500 monthly average between January and May. Moreover, relatively robust hiring in the healthcare, transport, and utility sectors compensated for anemic recruitment otherwise. Featured Video An Inc.com Featured Presentation “Private employers added jobs in October for the first time since July, but hiring was modest relative to what we reported earlier this year,” said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson, announcing the latest monthly estimate. And that was the good news. Rival payroll services and staff management company Gusto released its October employment data for small businesses, when 5,900 jobs were lost. Worse still, that extended the decline in recruitment since a recent peak of 57,400 new hires in July, which decreased to around 19,000 in September before dipping into the red last month. “This marks a continuation of the broader hiring slowdown we’ve observed since the post-pandemic hiring surge of 2021, when small businesses were adding an average of 170,000 net new jobs each month,” the October 2025 Gusto Small Business Jobs Report said. “Notably, the overall pace of both hiring and terminations has slowed dramatically over the past two years — the so-called ‘Great Freeze’. Hiring for small businesses peaked at nearly 3.4 million per month in January 2022, and have since fallen by 37 percent since then.” Homebase, another competitor in payroll and workforce management services, used different statistics to paint the same picture of a weakening labor market. Its recently released “Main Street Health Report” found that what it terms “workforce participation” at the over 100,000 small businesses it studied had decreased by 2.9 percent in October — a slight improvement over the 3.5 percent headcount decline in September. That came as hiring slipped 5 percent compared to October 2024, with business activity sluggish or dropping in all sectors apart from hospitality. So, what should business leaders make from those different, yet largely overlapping views of company headcounts remaining flat or shrinking slightly in October? According to Appcast chief economist Andrew Flowers, amid the “fog” created by the absence of reliable government data during the shutdown, the best thing businesses owners can do is use the available “headlights” of private sector statistics to carefully steer themselves down the road. That may be unnerving, he said, but less dangerous than pessimists might think. “What data we do have in hand suggests a continual labor market slowdown, but not the bottom falling out,” Flowers said in emailed comments to Inc. But he also pointed to recent mass layoffs announced by Amazon, Target, UPS, IBM, and other corporations. Following those big cuts, there may be a risk that business leaders deprived of official economic and employment data could defensively replicate the headcount cutting example of bigger companies. “This happened in early 2023, mind you — when bad vibes about jobs were disproportionate to the underlying data,” Flowers said. “This time around we don’t have the data to guide us. (But) underlying consumer spending and business investment has been surprisingly resilient. Real-time GDP tracking estimates show Q3 to be quite strong.” Meaning employers, staff, and job seekers alike would be wise to buckle up and hope for the best as they make their way through the fog.
