September jobs report released on Friday: What to expect 

The Department of Labor will release its always closely watched jobs report early Friday morning in the wake of a deluge of bad economic data this week that have triggered new fears about an impending recession.

Worse-than-expected job creation — or an uptick in unemployment — in September could pile onto those jitters.

Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv, however, expect the U.S. economy to have added 145,000 jobs last month, up slightly from August’s tally of 130,000 (which included 25,000 temporary census workers). That’s just below the average employment growth of 158,000 jobs year-to-date. Unemployment, meanwhile, is forecast to hold steady at 3.7 percent, near a 50-year-low.

As the U.S. continues the longest economic expansion on record, investors are looking at the Department of Labor’s monthly payroll and unemployment data for signs that the rapid job growth over the past two years is softening and lending way to an overall growth slowdown.

“For the moment, the U.S. economy remains fairly strong and job gains continue,” said Cailin Birch, global economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit. “However, economic growth, and therefore job creation, are showing clear signs of slowing.”

The primary reason for the darkening outlook, Birch said, is the 15-month long U.S.-China trade war, which has culminated in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs on each other’s goods.

“We expect this slowdown to become increasingly apparent in economic data in the fourth quarter of 2019,” she said.

The latest economic data suggests the U.S. economy, or at least key parts of it, are already beginning to take a hit from the tariffs.

In September, the Institute for Supply Management's purchasing managers' index fell to 47.8 percent, the lowest level since 2009. Any figure below 50 percent signals a contraction.

That reading triggered the start of a stock market plunge, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding more than 800 points over the course of two days. It continued on Thursday after the services survey showed the economy is weaker than expected.

And on Wednesday, the ADP National Employment Report revealed the economy added 135,000 jobs last month, slightly fewer than economists expected, spurring fears the labor market is beginning to cool.

"Job growth is definitely slowing," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, during a conference call with reporters."Businesses have turned more cautious in their hiring. Small businesses have become especially hesitant. If businesses pull back any further, unemployment will begin to rise."

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