Editorial Board
Don’t Let the Jobs Report Choose the Next U.S. President
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Would you want a random-number generator to decide who will be the next U.S. president? Ludicrous as it sounds, something like that could occur Nov. 2, when the government releases its monthly jobs report.
The employment report, released at 8:30 a.m. on the first Friday of most months, offers one of the earliest indicators of the state of the U.S. economy. As such, it tends to have a big impact. The change in nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate have become front-page news in a nation searching for signs of recovery from the worst slump in a generation. A surprise of even 50,000 jobs can move markets.