If it just seems like the first Friday of the month wasn't the same without being able to pore through the Bureau of Labor Statistics' hotly watched monthly jobs report, don't worry. You probably didn't miss much.

While the BLS has gone dark with the shutdown in Washington, other reports outside the government data suggest the labor market just plodded along in September.

The Dow Jones consensus forecast was for growth of 51,000 in nonfarm payrolls with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.3%.

High-frequency data that includes job postings, private payrolls and state-by-state figures for initial jobless claims indicate that while employment growth continues to be anemic, the labor market overall isn't capsizing, at least not anytime soon.

"We fight with the army we have at momen

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