Fire Shuts Down Labor Dept. Building

An overnight fire at the Labor Department's headquarters has shut the building down for most employees.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire at the Frances Perkins building or how extensive the damage was. The building on Constitution Ave. opened in 1975.

AP is reportied that:

Spokesman Carl Fillichio says the agency's monthly employment report will be released as scheduled Friday.

This should come as no surprise since the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the division of the DOL that compiles and releases data, is not in the same building! The BLS is several blocks away across the street from a side entrance to Union Station. In the old days, pre-cell phones and before the BLS caught on, bond traders used to hire "reporters" to gain early access to the numbers and run across the street to Union Station phone booths to tip off traders before the number was released across the wires.