Data Check: Should you add inventory or build capacity?

One side effect of the government shutdown is a delay in data collection and release. If you're in business, you either track directly data such as that below, or rely on those who do. So this is what the impact looks like for this month... The Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) has not indicated whether some of next month's releases will be delayed as they play catch-up with collecting, verifying and analyzing data.

If you're on edge about whether or not to go ahead with a project, or to increase inventory levels, well, you might wait until you have more information. Since many others will be doing the same, this will exert a modest (but likely measurable) drag on the economy. (If a project is clearly good, as many are, then this sort of informational black hole won't affect your decision. Hopefully you don't find projects that are clearly bad landing on your desk.)

Note that the sequester affects BLS, too – if you want quality and not just timeliness, well, doing the research and improving collection takes money. Special surveys in particular are costly. That's most important if you're affected by new sectors of the economy, because that's where BLS has to redesign or at least extend their data collection.

Updated Schedule of BLS News Releases

Release	Reference Period	Previously Scheduled Release Date	Revised Release Date
Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment	August 2013	Wednesday, October 02, 2013	Monday, October 21, 2013
Employment Situation	September 2013	Friday, October 04, 2013	Tuesday, October 22, 2013
U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes	September 2013	Thursday, October 10, 2013	Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey	August 2013	Tuesday, October 08, 2013	Thursday, October 24, 2013
Producer Price Index	September 2013	Friday, October 11, 2013	Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Consumer Price Index	September 2013	Wednesday, October 16, 2013	Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Real Earnings	September 2013	Wednesday, October 16, 2013	Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Employment Situation	October 2013	Friday, November 01, 2013	Friday, November 08, 2013
Employment Cost Index	Third Quarter 2013	Thursday, October 31, 2013	Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers	Third Quarter 2013	Friday, October 18, 2013	Being planned
Regional and State Employment and Unemployment	September 2013	Tuesday, October 22, 2013	Being planned
Occupational Injuries and Illnesses	2012 Annual	Thursday, October 24, 2013	Being planned
Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment	September 2013	Wednesday, October 30, 2013	Being planned
Productivity and Costs (Prelim)	Third Quarter 2013	Wednesday, November 06, 2013	Being planned
Nonfatal Occupational Injuries & Illnesses Requiring Days Away From Work	2012 Annual	Thursday, November 07, 2013	Being planned
Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey	September 2013	Friday, November 08, 2013	Being planned
U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes	October 2013	Wednesday, November 13, 2013	Being planned
Producer Price Index	October 2013	Thursday, November 14, 2013	Being planned
Consumer Price Index	October 2013	Friday, November 15, 2013	Being planned
Real Earnings	October 2013	Friday, November 15, 2013	Being planned
Business Employment Dynamics	First Quarter 2013	Tuesday, November 19, 2013	Being planned
Regional and State Employment and Unemployment	October 2013	Tuesday, November 19, 2013	Being planned
Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment	October 2013	Wednesday, November 27, 2013	Being planned
Producer Price Index	November 2013	Friday, December 13, 2013	Being planned

The Economy and Car Sales

Every month I peruse select details of the monthly labor market surveys – the Current Population Survey and the Current Employment Survey – for hints on how the economy is performing. Not this month, thanks to the continuing inability of the House to pass a budget, or now even a continuing resolution. Both the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, key sources, are hit. Ironically, this month is when such data might be most helpful, because the timing of labor day makes it hard to interpret September car sales data.

...we've lost access to data on employment and wages just when an early Labor Day makes it hard to interpret auto sales

The value of economic information comes from its wide availability; that works against any private provision. Inflation calculations provide a good illustration of the limits of private provision. That's because there is the private Billion Prices Project that uses online data. This index correlates well with the official Consumer Price Index, as expected: inflation is a measure of broad, economy-wide trends and so the full-economy CPI and the BPP ought to move together. However, the private BPP provides no detail, and for business what matters is likely what's going on in their product line, not the economy as a whole. Furthermore, due to the way in which BPP collects data, it cannot provide information on healthcare costs or education, for which online pricing isn't available – and if you delve into the details of the CPI, these do not correlate as will with whole-economy price movements.

Now all data are historic, measures of the past, while business must needs look to the future. To the extent that an economy changes slowly, however, knowing where we're coming from is invaluable. We do face surprises. The current government shut-down is a mild one – except that I live in Virginia, with a disproportionate number of government employees. But we'll be getting no data on that. And some information such as interest rates is collected by the Federal Reserve, which is self-funding (and hands over its profits to the US Treasury). So as the debt ceiling D-day approaches, we will be able to get compilations of data on certain markets. More on that later.

mike smitka