Quick Facts:
- Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 263,000 in September.
- The unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent.
- Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality and in health care.
- The labor force participation rate was little changed at 62.3 percent in September, and the employment-population ratio was unchanged at 60.1 percent.
- The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.1 million in September. The long-term unemployed accounted for 18.5 percent of all unemployed persons.
Looking Forward:
- The number of job openings fell 10% in September to a seasonally adjusted 10.1 million from 11.2 million the month before, the Labor Department reported. The 1.1 million drop in openings is the largest decline since the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. That left job openings at their lowest level in a year.
- Many firms slowing hiring or laying off workers are in industries that are highly sensitive to interest-rate increases, such as technology and real estate. Some companies that saw a rise in demand earlier in the pandemic are also cutting back as consumer preferences shifted from goods to services.
- Fed Governor Christopher Waller: “Expectations are for job gains of around 260,000, which would be lower than recent months but very healthy relative to past experience. A jobs number in this range along with the job openings rate reported on Tuesday would show that the labor market is slowing a bit but is still quite tight. As a result, I don’t expect tomorrow’s jobs report to alter my view that we should be focused 100 percent on reducing inflation.”
- Jobless claims also increased more than expected last week, with the number of Americans filing first- time unemployment benefits rising to 219,000, a five-week high.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
