For starters, the data is two months old. And unless there’s a huge change in job creation or the unemployment rate, economists and market analysts say they’re not expecting new clarity on where the economy is headed from such outdated information.

U.S. employers added a surprisingly solid 119,000 jobs in September, the government said, issuing a key economic report that had been delayed for seven weeks by the federal government shutdown

The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% in September, highest since October 2021 and up from 4.3% in August, the Labor Department said Thursday.