Moreover, at this time the dislocation of workers seems unlikely to be large or persistent enough relative to the size of our nation's labor force to significantly affect the natural rate of unemployment. This impression was reinforced by the employment report for September, which showed the pace of hurricane-related job losses to be considerably less that many analysts had feared.
Of course, it is too early to put too much weight on any one observation about the economy after the hurricanes. The hurricanes have, however, adversely affected the outlook for inflation. The damage to production and refining facilities has significantly boosted the prices of natural gas and gasoline.