There's No Jobs Report Today, But There's Something Almost As Useful

Normally today would be a Jobs Day.

The monthly Non-Farm Payrolls report is regularly scheduled for the first Friday of each month, but thanks to the government shutdown in October (which delayed last month's jobs report) this month's report is getting pushed back a week.

But that's okay, there's still some interesting data coming out today: Monthly motor vehicle sales.

Per Calculated Risk, monthly motor vehicle sales for October are expected to come in at 15.4 million (annualized) vs. 15.2 million (annualized) for September.

Why is this number interesting to us? Because there's not surprisingly a correlation between auto sales and employment.

This chart shows monthly auto sales adjusted for population (red line) vs. the unemployment rate (blue line). It's not perfect, but for the last couple decades, there's a pretty steady relationship between the two. If auto sales come in strong this month, it will be a good sign that employment is going in the right direction.