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For economists who follow the job market, the first Friday of the month is usually like Christmas morning. That's when the Labor Department ordinarily delivers its closely-watched report on jobs and unemployment.

But the first Friday of October brought nothing but a lump of coal, after the jobs report was postponed by the government shutdown.

Instead of sitting at her computer at 8:30 am, anxiously refreshing the screen to see the report, Allison Shrivastava spent an idle morning with nothing to do.

"I guess I'll just slowly sip my coffee," says Shrivastava, an economist with Indeed, the job search website. "Take the dog for an extra long walk."

A lot is packed into the jobs report

The monthly jobs report is one of the government's most clo

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