In the week through Sept. 28, there were 225,000 initial jobless claims, compared economists expectations of 220,000 initial claims.

The 254,000 reported increase in jobs in September flies against recent trends and is unlikely to be the benchmark going forward. So how many jobs is the economy really creating each month? Over the last four months,

Stronger-than-expected job growth could reaffirm the market’s expectation the Fed will slow its future rate cuts to a quarter-point each, following a half-point reduction at its September meeting. Softer growth could do the opposite,