No Jobs Report? Carlyle’s Shadow Read Says Hiring Stalled Out

With the official jobs report on ice thanks to the government shutdown, Wall Street reached for flashlights. One of the brighter beams came from the Carlyle Group, which combed through data from its vast portfolio and concluded September hiring was basically a wash. Its estimate: payrolls grew by just 17,000 — worse than August’s already-tepid 22,000 gain in the last Bureau of Labor Statistics release.

Carlyle’s read isn’t the only weak signal. ADP said private payrolls actually fell by 32,000 in September (some of that tied to revisions), and Challenger, Gray & Christmas noted hiring plans dropped to their lowest since 2009. The New York Fed’s latest consumer survey shows rising anxiety too: 41.1% expect higher unemployment a year from now, the perceived odds of losing a job nudged up to 14.9%, though people feel a bit better about landing a new one within three months — 47.4% versus August’s 44.9%.

And yet, the broader economy doesn’t look like it’s cracking. Carlyle’s “nowcaster” puts underlying GDP growth at a 2.7% annualized pace, with business investment accelerating at a 4.8% three-month annual rate. On prices, the firm tracked a 3.8% drop in energy costs and a 3.3% rise in services excluding shelter — the slice of inflation the Fed obsesses over. In other words: a cool labor pulse alongside still-respectable growth and sticky services inflation.

That split screen is why markets care about substitutes when official data go dark. Carlyle’s estimates draw on an “expansive” footprint — 277 companies, 694 real estate investments, and roughly 730,000 workers — which makes its signal hard to ignore. But even among private trackers there’s debate: Goldman Sachs’ underlying jobs gauge pointed to something closer to +80,000 in September, and its analysts say labor slack is building toward the loosest levels in a decade.

Zoom out and the picture looks “steady but fragile.” Firms aren’t firing aggressively, but they’re clearly not rushing to hire, and big-ticket plans are being trimmed. Consumers feel the wobble, even as falling energy prices offer a little relief and growth chugs on at something better than stall speed. The missing BLS report would have settled the argument. In its absence, Carlyle’s shadow print is the story: hiring cooled to a near standstill, while the rest of the economy kept moving — slowly, unevenly, and very much under the Fed’s microscope.

With input from Bloomberg, CNBC, and USA Today.