Even though the federal government shutdown is over, another month will go by without any report of state unemployment and jobs numbers.
The Delaware Dept. of Labor’s Office of Occupational and Labor Market Information releases Delaware’s unemployment and jobs numbers monthly.
That office is still looking for guidance from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics following the 43-day shutdown.
Office of Occupational and Labor Market Information Chief Tom Dougherty tells Delaware Public Media the hope is to release September’s jobs numbers in early December.
"Right now we're in the process of calculating the numbers, and it is going to take a little time to get through that,” said Dougherty. “But hopefully by that time we'll have a September monthly labor review count. As far as the October release goes, my understanding is that there will not be any unemployment data for October."
October’s numbers would normally have been released last Friday.
"Some of the data that would have been collected in October was not collected because of the shutdown. So without that data, we're unable to produce estimates for it. So some of the data that should have been collected in October is just not available," said Dougherty.
The last month to have a report was September which offered the state’s August numbers.
Dougherty adds the plan is to get back on schedule as quickly as possible, and there’s a chance that some of October’s data could be part of the November jobs and unemployment rate report expected in late December.
