U.S. employers added fewer than 200,000 jobs in September, sharply undershooting market expectations and painting a picture of labor market recovery that’s on wobbly footing.
The Labor Department’s jobs report, released Oct. 8, shows that non-farm payroll employment rose by a paltry 194,000 last month, down from last month’s upwardly revised 366,000 and far below the FactSet-provided consensus forecasts of 500,000.
“The latest snapshot of the job market is a bit of a bad news, good news affair,” Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.
“It delivered a surprisingly weak payrolls number,” Hamrick said, adding, “at the same time, the nation’s unemployment rate slipped four-tenths to a pandemic era low of 4.8 percent.”
The total number of unemployed persons fell by 710,000 to 7.7 million, the report showed. While that’s considerably lower than the pandemic-era high, it remains elevated compared to the 5.7 million just prior to the outbreak.
Leisure and hospitality, including bars and restaurants, generated only 74,000 jobs, a result that’s below expectations. There was also weakness in local government educations jobs, which fell by 144,000 last month despite schools reopening.
There was relative strength in manufacturing, which added 27,000 jobs, and transportation and warehousing saw a jobs boost of 47,000 positions.
Overall, government payrolls fell by 123,000 jobs in September, which was offset by an increase of 317,000 in private payrolls.
The labor force participation rate, which is a measure of people working or actively looking for work, remained little changed at 61.6 percent, a historically depressed level. In February 2020, the labor force participation rate stood at 63.6 percent, with a historical peak of 67.3 percent in April 2000.
“Some have thought the end of pandemic employment benefits would bring a rush of potential workers back into the equation. We’re not seeing that yet,” Hamrick said.
By Tom Ozimek
