US cancels release of CPI report for October because of government shutdown

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday it had canceled the release of October’s consumer price report because the recently ended government shutdown had prevented the collection of data.

“BLS is unable to retroactively collect these data. For a few indexes, BLS uses nonsurvey data sources instead of survey data to make the index calculations,” the BLS said in a statement.

“BLS is able to retroactively acquire most of the nonsurvey data for October. Where possible, BLS will publish October 2025 values for these series with the release of November 2025 data.”

November’s Consumer Price Index report will be published on December 18. It was initially due on December 10.

The statistics agency this week also canceled the release of October’s employment report for the same reason. 

The government will, however, publish October nonfarm payrolls together with the employment report for November on December 16. October’s unemployment rate, which is calculated from the household survey, will never be known.

Data for the CPI is collected primarily through physical visits to retailers, including supermarkets, and telephone calls. The household survey data is also collected through visits and telephone calls to households at a particular point during the month.

The BLS also said the Employment Cost Index report for the third quarter will be published on December 10. The ECI is the broadest measure of labor costs, and is viewed by policymakers as one of the better gauges of labor market slack and a predictor of core inflation because it adjusts for composition and job-quality changes.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani and Bhargav Acharya, Editing by Franklin Paul and Nia Williams)