This is the second time in two years that hurricanes have affected the jobs count. Indeed, the first edition of the number from last September had a minus sign on it. So, one of the things that we have to keep in mind as we look at the year-over-year comparisons is that last year was a special event.
The BLS noted that Hurricane Florence did have an impact on the jobs count, but that the effects were not large enough to merit any more mention than that. The fact that the area affected by the storm was much smaller and less densely populated than the areas that were hit last year is probably why they did not feel the need to make any special adjustments to the figures they just got.
