A government shutdown will affect jobs — and jobs numbers

Lawmakers were not able to come to an agreement over a spending bill to keep the government running over the weekend. If Congress doesn’t strike a budget deal by Monday night, what have been deemed ‘non-essential’ parts of the federal government will close down. About 700,000 federal employees could be temporarily laid off.

Turns out, this includes the statisticians who are calculating what is arguably the most market-sensitive government report of the week:  Friday’s scheduled employment and unemployment report. Julia Coronado, chief economist North America at BNP Paribas, says if Congress doesn’t strike a deal there will be no jobs report. While there is some precedent for this, Coronado says this would inject some uncertainty because economists would have to make informal estimates instead. 

“Uncertainty is never good for financial markets,” she says. “There’s a lot of jitters, not just because the economic impact would be so large, but we just won’t know what will come next.”

Julia Coronado, chief economist North America at BNP Paribas, joins Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio to discuss. Click the audio player above to hear more.