Trump hides BLS job report as private employers shed 32,000 jobs in September

The nation’s labor market showed clear signs of stalling in September, as private employers shed 32,000 jobs, according to the National Employment Report released Wednesday by payroll processing firm ADP.

The decline, the largest since March 2023, paints a picture of an economy caught in a curious limbo, described by one economist as a “low-hire, low-fire” environment.

The report arrives amid an information blackout caused by the government shutdown, which has shuttered the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and delayed the official September jobs report.

Based on economic indicators and analyst expectations, a new jobs report would likely describe a stagnating labor market, but no official data was released because President Donald Trump is hiding behind the U.S. government shutdown.

Republicans caused the shutdown by refusing to propose a budget that could earn five Democratic votes in the Senate. Democrats won’t support the GOP spending plan because it would kill 50,000 Americans each year by doubling insurance premiums and kicking up to 15 million people off of Medicaid.

A month ago, BLS reported that jobless rates were higher in August than a year earlier in 243 of the nation’s 387 metropolitan areas, lower in 115, and unchanged in 29. Total nonfarm payroll employment increased in August by an anemic 22,000, according to the last BLS report.

Policymakers, investors, and the public are left flying blind without critical data on the nation’s economic health. As a result, the ADP report has become an unwelcome substitute for the government’s gold-standard figures—a flickering candle in a suddenly dark room.

The details reveal a troubling divide. Small and midsize businesses, the engines of Main Street America, bore the brunt of the losses.

Establishments with fewer than 50 employees shed 40,000 jobs, while large companies with 500 or more workers added 33,000 positions. The numbers suggest growing fragility among smaller firms with less capacity to absorb economic shocks.

“Despite the strong economic growth we saw in the second quarter, this month’s release further validates what we’ve been seeing in the labor market—that U.S. employers have been cautious with hiring,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.

Losses were broad-based. Leisure and hospitality shed 19,000 jobs, and professional and business services lost 13,000. The only consistent bright spot was healthcare, which added 33,000 jobs, demonstrating its relative insulation from the broader economy’s fluctuations.

The report also showed that August’s numbers were weaker than initially thought.

ADP’s previous estimate of a 54,000-job gain was revised to a loss of 3,000—a dramatic swing underscoring the labor market’s rapid loss of momentum through late summer.

Other private data point to the same weakening trend. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that layoffs through September have reached their highest level since 2020, with total job cuts expected to surpass one million by year’s end.

Although the pace of layoffs eased in September, the overall trend suggests a labor market growing increasingly stagnant.

With the government’s official report on hold, the Federal Reserve faces a difficult decision ahead of its next interest rate meeting at the end of October.

The central bank has cited a weaker labor market as a key factor in its recent rate cuts, and the latest ADP data may now serve as its primary guide. As one economist put it, “If the shutdown drags on, the weakness in the ADP report will be all the Fed has to go on as it considers another rate cut.”

The nation is left to navigate an uncertain economic road without headlights.

The true state of the American workforce—once meticulously charted by government number crunchers—is now a matter of guesswork and partial data. In this silence, the loss of 32,000 jobs is not just a statistic; it is the first line of a story whose next chapter remains unwritten, its pages locked away in a closed government building.