Here's Why The Government Shutdown Won't Cause Initial Jobless Claims To Explode

And many of these workers are expected to head to the unemployment office to collect unemployment insurance payments.

However, these people won't cause the widely-followed U.S. initial jobless claims to explode from 6-year lows.

JP Morgan's U.S. economics team explains:

We do not expect the government shutdown to have a major impact on the initial claims data. The initial claims data (which are compiled by state governments before being sent to the federal government) are being reported normally despite the government shutdown. And while government workers can file for unemployment insurance, their claims are separated from the regular claims pool-there was a massive jump in the number of claims filed in federal programs around the 1995/1996 government shutdown, but the standard initial claims number did not increase significantly. Data on claims in federal programs are reported with an additional lag of one week relative to the regular initial claims data.

The claims report will be released at 8:50 a.m. ET. Economists are expecting 310,000, up from 308,000 a week ago.