(Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve policy makers will likely look through September’s weakening in the U.S. labor-market recovery and take their first step to removing pandemic stimulus at their meeting next month.

“This does not change the Fed’s taper timeline,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics. “For the Fed taper, the standards on both inflation and the labor market have likely been met. However, that says little about policy tightening, which has a much more stringent test and is some time off.”

The Federal Open Market Committee left interest rates near zero at its September meeting and said that starting to scale back the central bank’s $120 billion in monthly asset purchases “may soon be warranted” if the economy continued to progress. Chair Jerome Powell told reporters the process could start as soon as the Fed’s Nov. 2-3 meeting and the FOMC’s “substantial further progress” taper test for employment “is all but met.”

The nonfarm payrolls grew 194,000 in the last month. This is a small increase and far below what was expected after an upwardly revised 366,000. gain in August. A Labor Department report on Friday showed. Partly due to a decrease in the workforce, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.8%. In the meantime, hourly average earnings increased.

Bloomberg Economics:

“Today’s jobs report for September — the only one the Federal Open Market Committee will have heading into November’s meeting — does not inspire confidence about the labor-market recovery. Still, we expect the Fed will look through this disappointment, attributing it to temporary weakness due to Covid, and forge ahead with a taper announcement in November.”

Anna Wong (economists), Andrew Husby, and Eliza Winger 

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Roberto Perli (a Cornerstone Macro LLC partner) said that while the Fed could view this report as being more positive than the headline payrolls figure, it may be less so overall. This is due to revisions made in the previous month, and seasonal adjustments for teachers, which may have been an issue. Also, he saw taper beginning in November. 

A drop in the unemployment rate and wage growth could be considered a sign of less labor market slack.

“The Fed hawks will highlight the pretty fast wage growth as a sign the labor market continues to tighten,” said Thomas Costerg, senior U.S. economist at Pictet Wealth Management. “The Fed has worked so hard to build a consensus on this November taper that really at this stage it will be hard to stop the train.”

The FOMC next meets Nov. 2-3, but the October employment report won’t be available by then. The Fed could delay taper unexpectedly, which would mean that the final meeting for the year will be Dec. 14-15.

The Fed views the report as “cautionary, not cataclysmic,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton LLP.  “The Fed still tapers, given the revisions to August. It would have taken more than a miss to stop the Fed from tapering.”

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