Federal Reserve officials are heading into their next meeting with an incomplete picture of the labor market. The September jobs report is due Thursday.

U.S. employment growth accelerated in September, but the labor market remained sluggish and failed to keep pace with new job-seekers as employers dealt with fallout from import tariffs and integrated artificial intelligence into some positions.

Surveys were delayed and some cannot be collected at all, officials said, further complicating the Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates next month.

A one-off data point has popped into view on the Labor Department’s website: a figure showing that 232,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims in the week through Oct. 18.

More than 1.9 million Americans filed claims for unemployment benefits in mid-October, the highest mark since early August, according to data from the Department of Labor. For the week ending Oct.

The number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits stood at a two-month high in mid-October at the time when the Labor Department would have been conducting its survey of U.S. households.

The ripple effect from the recently ended government shutdown will continue to affect further employment data for the next several weeks.

The Georgia Labor Department is embarking on a $46 million modernization effort to overhaul its unemployment insurance system, with plans to launch a new cloud-based platform by Fall 2026.