Here’s what private sources say

With government labor market data for November still weeks away, two special reports show job fluctuations are flying faster while job offers are slowing.

U.S. employers lost 9,000 jobs in November, according to a labor market report from Revelio Labs, an analytics firm that tracks job gains and losses using data from online professional profiles. That was better than the 15,500 job losses in October, but it was the fifth month out of the last seven in which job growth was in the red.

A separate report from consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed that employers announced 71,321 job cuts in November, up from 57,727 at the same time last year. However, this number is down from the increase of 153,074 in October.

Data from private sector companies provides a snapshot of the health of the labor market in the absence of official reports, which have been delayed by the government shutdown. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ official labor market report for October has been canceled, and the November report, which was scheduled for release on Friday, has been postponed until December 16.

The reports were the latest in a series of indicators showing the labor market is slowing, following a report released Wednesday from payroll provider ADP, which showed private sector employers shed 32,000 jobs in November.

Economists said the tariffs and the uncertainty surrounding them are an important factor in the labor market slowdown. Employers have put expansion plans on hold amid trade policy uncertainty, and consumers are tightening their belts due to rising prices.

“Tariffs have raised production costs and inflation expectations, making consumers more cautious with their spending,” Tom Campbell, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote in a commentary.

The reports reinforced fears of a faltering labor market outside the education and health care sector, which continues to expand. The most significant job losses in the Revelio report came in the retail and manufacturing sectors.

The 1,170,821 job cuts that Challenger has tracked so far this year are the highest since the pandemic struck in 2020, while the 497,151 hiring announcements are the fewest since the end of the Great Recession in 2010.

To be sure, economists generally consider private reports less trustworthy than official data, which rely on large surveys, and wait for numbers from statistical agencies to provide a more definitive picture. A separate report from the Labor Department on Thursday appeared to contradict the bleak picture painted by ADP, Challenger and Revelio, as unemployment claims fell to their lowest levels in 2022 last week.

However, the decline in unemployment claims could just be a statistical blip caused by the holidays.

“This doesn’t tell us much about the labor market,” Heather Long, chief economist at Marine Federal Credit Union, wrote in a commentary. “It simply tells us that Americans will put their job searches and unemployment claims on hold over the late holidays this year.”

Although not definitive, the private sector data provides officials at the Federal Reserve with more reason to cut interest rates in hopes of preventing unemployment from rising. The Federal Open Market Committee is widely expected to cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point at its meeting next week, despite concerns that lower borrowing costs could lead to higher inflation.