While Friday’s report will deliver a host of critical info about the nation’s job market, one of the biggest stories in labor might not be fully on display.
There are more than 25,000 United Auto Workers union members on strike at Detroit’s Big Three automakers of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, and more than 3,300 members have been laid off or furloughed to date.
While some of the impacts are starting to be seen at local workforce centers and in state unemployment claims, the effects of the UAW strike will be largely muted in Friday’s jobs report, economists say.
The UAW strike started on September 15, which is at the tail end of the reference periods for both of the surveys that make up the monthly employment report. The reference periods for the household and establishment surveys are generally the calendar week that includes the 12th day of the month and the pay period that includes the 12th day of the month, respectively.
Workers who worked or received pay for that pay period, even if it’s just for 30 minutes, are counted as employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We won’t see the direct impact probably until the October [jobs] report,” Bunker told CNN.
Separately, the SAG-AFTRA strike involving 16,000 actors should not have a noticeable impact on the information sector, as striking employees were already counted as unemployed in the August jobs report, noted Lydia Boussour, EY’s senior economist.
“Overall, there were only 1,700 net new workers on strike in September, according to the latest BLS strike report,” she said.
Still, the UAW strike could have ripple effects on employment outside of the Big Three as other companies within, or ancillary to, the auto industry could lay off workers as a result of slowing or canceled orders.