The U.S. government is entering its third day of shutdown on Friday, October 3, which was when the September jobs report was scheduled to be released. Yet with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and other government statistical agencies in a deep freeze, we have no data. How then are economists and policymakers, as well as HR and recruiting leaders, expected to “fly blind” without trusted jobs data?
Here at Recruitonomics, we’ve written a guide to the non-BLS data we trust from private sector labor market sources, as well as the indicators from financial and prediction markets.
Private-sector labor market data
ADP’s National Employment Report is built from anonymized payroll records of its client companies and reports private-sector employment growth and median pay by industry and firm size. Since its 2022 revamp with Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab, the series is more clearly positioned as an independent read on actual people on private sector payrolls—not openings or intentions. We use it to anchor whether headcount is expanding or stalling and how pay momentum is shifting, especially for large vs. small employers. It showed a decline of -32,000 jobs in September — a worrisome sign. Caveats: it excludes government jobs and reflects the mix of ADP’s clients.
Second, there is a new upstart, Revelio Labs, who compiles workforce signals from public employment records (such as LinkedIn profiles) and runs a massive, de-duplicated COSMOS postings dataset sourced from ~440,000 company sites, major job boards, and staffing firms. It claims to cover over 4 billion historical postings. That breadth makes Revelio strong for skills taxonomies, competitive hiring, separations/tenure, and vacancy dynamics at company/industry levels. We treat it as a deep dive into who’s hiring for what skills (and where), plus how competitors’ talent stacks are evolving. Contrasting ADP, Revelio data indicated a gain of +60,000 jobs last month. Caveats: profile-based signals can lag real-time changes; postings are demand, not filled jobs.
Third, there is our trusted partner Indeed, who through the Hiring Lab provides high-frequency job-posting levels (daily series refreshed weekly) and a Wage Tracker that measures year-over-year growth in advertised pay, controlling for job titles. (Full disclosure: Andrew was formerly an economist on the Indeed Hiring Lab team.) Their methodology notes and validation work show that posted-pay growth tends to move with official wage measures (levels differ), making it a useful read on where employers are setting pay for new hires. We use Indeed data to spot demand turning points by occupation. Indeed has been largely consistent with JOLTS data on openings, as you see below. Caveats: platform mix effects; posted ≠ realized pay.
During the government shutdown, triangulate: ADP to anchor actual payroll jobs and pay; Indeed for vacancy momentum and posted-pay; and Revelio as an added source for both. At Appcast, we look for agreement across sources rather than any one level reading; when two or more point the same way, we adjust our priors accordingly.
Financial markets and what they tell us about the economy
An old economist’s joke goes that the stock market has predicted nine of the last five recessions. Financial markets certainly aren’t perfect — they can get swept up in speculative manias — but they do absorb new information instantly by distilling billions of trades into a collective view of the economy. While they don’t always get the future exactly right, market signals are often valuable at key turning points in the economic cycle.
Economists look at financial markets because traditional economic labor market data is released with substantial lags. For example, back in 2008, policy makers were unaware that the economy was already in a recession for many months. Meanwhile, asset prices were flashing all sorts of red warning signs. Stock and house prices were plummeting, indicating a rapidly deteriorating economic outlook.
The VIX, often called the “fear index,” shows how nervous investors are about the stock market. When it spikes, it usually means markets expect trouble ahead. Credit spreads — the gap between corporate bond yields and safe U.S. government bonds (Treasuries) — widen when investors get worried about defaults, making them a powerful signal of stress in the real economy.
At the start of the Great Recession, both the VIX and credit spreads indicated significant economic turmoil. But we are not seeing any signs of that right now. On the contrary, financial markets are currently rife with optimism about the future with stock prices — especially AI companies — hitting new daily highs. Once a recession hits, financial markets will let us know!
Why look at prediction markets?
Not much unlike financial markets, prediction markets are places where people can “bet” daily on future events. While this feels like a novel concept, it has ancient roots. Already centuries ago, people were placing wagers on things like when a pope might die. Betting markets thus reflect the wisdom of the crowds. Economists have found that prediction markets often do a better job than experts at forecasting big outcomes. By putting money on the line, people reveal what they really believe. And when those beliefs are pooled together, the result is often surprisingly accurate, which is why these markets have become increasingly popular in economic analysis. Bets include predictions about a future recession, or the inflation and employment numbers.
Because prediction markets draw on public information, the loss of government data during a shutdown — like the BLS jobs report — will likely dent their accuracy. Even so, they remain an invaluable source of insight, since they can still incorporate signals from private data providers like ADP, Revelio, and Indeed. In that way, prediction markets can help us track economic trends even when official statistics go dark.
While the labor market has slowed significantly, lower job growth numbers are mostly the result of deportations and plunging net migration numbers, reducing the so-called breakeven rate (the monthly jobs number needed to keep unemployment stable). September’s jobs report is expected to come in at around 36k. While this seems low, prediction markets do not currently believe the recession narrative — the odds for Q4 2025 are at 13%. GDP growth for 2025 is expected to come in at around 2%. That is higher than most economists anticipated earlier this year, given the barrage of policies that the Trump administration has unleashed on America.
What does that mean for recruiters?
For recruiters, a government shutdown is more than a political sideshow. It’s a reminder that flying blind without reliable data is dangerous for your workforce planning. Without BLS benchmarks, you risk misreading the labor market. This is when private data becomes your lifeline: ADP and Revelio to understand employment dynamics, Indeed to track hiring demand and posted salaries, and potentially even prediction markets to understand where the economy and the labor market are heading.
The message is clear: if you’re still relying on government statistics alone, you are probably already behind the curve. The best recruiting leaders will use this period not just to fill roles, but to step up as the organization’s eyes and ears on the labor market, translating messy, imperfect signals into decisive talent strategy.
