The Great U.S. Federal Data Re-Opening Of 2025: Data Primer

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• This note offers a succinct summary of major monthly economic release methodologies, supporting our guide to the potential rescheduling of data releases with the government now re-opened (which can be found here).
• It primarily focuses on BLS releases, likely the first agency to announce an adjusted schedule. The BLS in 2013 offered an updated scheduled at ~4.30pm ET on day one of the re-opening although a Yahoo Finance reporter suggested Thursday this updated schedule could be produced “in the coming days”.
• The details give a better understanding as to why there’s a good chance the October CPI report will be cancelled along with the high likelihood of not receiving an unemployment rate with the October report.
• We also summarize the trend decline in key survey response rates prior to the shutdown, bringing with it scope for greater volatility from month-to-month releases.
• This might deteriorate further ahead, with The Friends Of The BLS noting that the BLS has lost almost 25% of its staff since February and that one third of BLS leadership positions are vacant. That will also have an impact on the BLS’s ability to catch-up with the extensive backlog of releases.