Economists already had been prepared for a weak jobs number in September, and ended up getting more than what they bargained for.

However, it's unlikely to last.

In fact, there's good reason to believe that when all is said and done, the jarring loss of 33,000 jobs for the month, as reflected in a Bureau of Labor Statistics report Friday, will change significantly.

The reason is the opaque process the bureau uses to compile the count.

The BLS uses two very different measures to put together the report: The establishment survey, which counts the total jobs according to a questionnaire some 147,000 businesses get, and the household survey, which questions homes to find out how many are at work. The former uses more estimates, adjustments and general economic voodoo than the latter, but is the one more closely followed on Wall Street.

One key difference between the two is that the establishment survey measures jobs while the household survey tallies the actual level of people at work — so one person holding two jobs would only count once.