WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — One of the minor annoyances of the government shutdown is the delay of the economic statistics that the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and others rely on for clues about how well the economy is doing.

The shutdown means that one of the most important data points, the September employment report, wasn’t released as scheduled on Friday. Typically, Jobs Friday is one of the biggest trading events of the month on Wall Street. Read the WSJ MoneyBeat live blog of No Jobs Friday.

The Fed has become increasingly reliant on the jobs report for evidence that the labor market will be strong enough to stand on its own once the Fed begins to taper its monthly purchases of $85 billion in bonds. However, the Fed’s next meeting comes at the end of the month, so the delay in the jobs report hasn’t had any impact on the Fed’s policies yet.

The shutdown also delayed data on construction spending and factory orders that were scheduled earlier this week. See our calendar of economic data releases.

Other key data points are scheduled to be released by the government next week, including data on retail sales, the trade deficit, producer prices, import prices, inventories, job openings, and even the data on how big the government’s deficit was in fiscal 2013.

Data released by the Labor Department, Commerce Department and Agriculture Department are being delayed. Data from the Federal Reserve, such as industrial production and consumer credit, will be released on as scheduled, because the Fed isn’t funded by congressional appropriations that are in limbo. The weekly jobless claims data are also being released, because the agency that prepares it is separately funded.

The Shutdown's Latest Casualty: September Jobs Report

In terms of impact on the economy, the data delay pales in comparison to denial of government services, the postponement of government spending, the deferred federal paychecks, and the loss of three-quarters of a million government jobs. Economists at Morgan Stanley figure gross domestic product would be reduced by about 0.15 percentage points for each week the government shuts down.

The data blackout won’t hurt the economy nearly as much, but flying blind can’t be a good thing while the economy remains in such a fragile condition.

There are alternative data sources, however, that can give us some good information about how the economy is doing, even while the government data agencies are shuttered. Make no mistake, however, we’d be better off with the government data.

So where can traders and data junkies get their fix while the government is shut down?

Alternatives to the payrolls report, scheduled for Friday.

On Wednesday, payroll services provider That was slightly below forecasts of 180,000, but slightly more than the 159,000 jobs added in August.

The so-so ADP report didn’t alter views on the strength of the labor market.

In theory, the ADP data should be nearly as reliable as the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ numbers. ADP is based on a sample of 406,000 companies employing about 23 million workers, or 20% of total private-sector employment. That’s a big sample.

“The ADP report has improved significantly as a forecasting input for private payrolls over the past year,” said Joseph Lavorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank. We are comfortable “relying on the ADP series as a close proxy of September hiring.”

The weekly jobless claims numbers were more bullish, however. Initial claims rose just 1,000 to 308,000, leaving the four-week average at its lowest level since May 2007. Some economists are hopeful that the claims numbers represent a real strengthening in the labor market.

There are many other employment indicators released by the private sector, such as the Gallup Poll’s unemployment rate survey, the Conference Board’s jobs-hard-to-get data, and the employment indexes in the Institute for Supply Management surveys of manufacturers and nonmanufacturing companies.

The government is closed. Shutterstock

Alternatives to retail sales, scheduled for Oct. 11.

No one other than the government attempts to calculate sales at all U.S. retail outlets, but many companies do report their sales. On Tuesday, the auto makers reported their September sales fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 15.3 million from 16.1 million in August. On Thursday, the major chain stores will reported their sales rose 3.9% compared with a year ago. Unfortunately, entire categories of retailers, such as grocers, eating establishments, gas stations, drug stores, and online stores, aren’t reported on a monthly basis.

Alternatives to trade data, scheduled for Oct. 8.

There aren’t many comprehensive sources for trade data that aren’t provided by the federal government, but we can learn a little from the reports on activity at specific ports. In addition, the U.S.’s largest trading partner, Canada, will release its August trade data as scheduled on Oct. 8.

Other data

If the shutdown lasts longer than two weeks, the government releases on housing starts, consumer prices, home sales, durable goods orders and gross domestic product could be delayed.

For housing starts, look at the National Association of Home Builders report on builder confidence. For consumer prices, look at PriceStats (the successor to the Billion Prices Project), which tracks prices posted online. For home sales, look at the National Association of Realtors report on sales of existing homes. For factory orders and GDP, look at industrial production, the ISM indexes and the regional Fed releases.

The Census Bureau workers who conduct most of the economic surveys will be furloughed, so they won’t be collecting or analyzing any data while the shutdown continues. Those furloughs could affect the timing and quality of data releases even after employees get back to work.