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Economists Quick To Dismiss Hurricane-Impacted Jobs Report On Twitter

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a net loss of 33,000 jobs for the country in September, the first monthly decline in seven years, but the market also saw the unemployment rate drop to 4.2%, a new low for this cycle.

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Economists were slow to interpret too much from the report’s data, which was impacted by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey much more than many expected.

“(The) U.S. storm-skewed report means nothing about anything,” New York University Center for Global Affairs Associate Professor Marc Chandler said

In a statement released with the jobs report, Bureau of Labor Statistics Acting Commissioner William Wiatrowski said 1.5 million workers had a job but were not at work for the entire reference week due to bad weather, the highest level for this series over the past 20 years. Chandler said this, too, could skew the data in the jobs report.

One potentially positive report was the upward revision to hourly earnings in August, perhaps alleviating some concerns about wage growth following last month’s jobs report.

Following are some more of the takes on Twitter following the jobs report release on Friday morning: