This week was a busy week with data from the weekly unemployment claims report, data from the monthly employment situation report, and a look back at the month that was September.

(Oct. 2) This month started with a look back at the top ten articles of September.  Every now and again an article that is written during the waning days of a month rockets to the most read column of the month. Sometimes a column written months, or years, earlier that is referenced in an article during the current month get a second shot at glory. Both situations happened this month. The week in reviews remain popular. Jobs, Housing, and unemployment still are your main interests.

(Oct. 2) This column produces a Jobs Report Forecast Article on a regular basis. This month's "September Jobs Forecast: Up is Down" September, the official end of Summer, means that people will leave seasonal jobs. This year the data was going to be influenced by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The questions were how many full-time jobs would be lost, how many part-time jobs would be added, and how many workers were going to "go home?"

(Oct. 3) The monthly Employment Situation Report, or Jobs Report, is preceded by the release of the ADP Payroll Report. "Potentially Strong September ADP Payroll Report" examined the trends of month to month and year to year changes. It was projected that we would see growth in virtually every sector, month to month, and that contrary to what normally occurs, we should have seen improvement in the manufacturing sector.

(Oct. 4) Wednesday was "Jobs Day - Part 1." The growth in the seasonally adjusted manufacturing data came to fruition. The interesting piece of data was that both the IT and the Trade, Transportation and Utility sectors saw declines in jobs. "Sept. ADP Shows Stronger Goods Producing Jobs" goes into detail. The number was not strong. It was positive.

(Oct. 5) Thursday is, was, and almost always is Unemployment Claims Data Day. This week we received really good data that was ignored because "it didn't make sens."  The article "Historically, Hysterically Low Unemployment Claims Data" details how we had fewer first-time claims than we had for the final week of September 1970. It also detailed how we had fewer continuing claims that we had during the fourth week of September (there were five report dates this month.)

(Oct. 6) The monthly jobs report was stunningly maligned. This was a month where increasing participation, improved mostly by the creation of more part-time jobs, one million more part-time jobs,   while recording declines in the number of unemployed workers was overshadowed by a drop in the seasonally adjusted CES worker data. There was a ton of details that were ignored. The U-6 unemployment rate fell. The U3 unemployment level and unemployment rate fell. More people worked multiple jobs during September than did so during August. "Sept. Jobs Up, Workers Down" tells the story of the two data sets  used to create one report.

The data released yesterday requires more analysis than other sources will provide. Stay tuned to this column.

It's the economy.