Unemployment Rate 9.8% for September

The job outlook remains poor as employment continued to decline for the month of September, according to a report released by the U.S. Labor Department on Friday. The largest losses were in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, and government positions.

Non-farm payroll employment decreased by 263,000 last month and the unemployment rate was 9.8%. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the unemployment rate has doubled as the number of unemployed persons reaches 15.1 million – an increase of 7.6 million.

The number of long-term unemployed – those without a job for 27 weeks or more – rose by 450,000 to 5.4 million in September. Over a third of American workers are considered long-term unemployed at 35.6% for last month.

About 2.2 million persons were “marginally attached” to the labor force in September. These individuals wanted a job and were available to work – and they looked for work sometime in the preceding twelve-month period – but were not counted as unemployed because they didn’t actively look for work in the four-week period preceding the survey. Of these marginally attached workers, 706,000 were discouraged workers – they didn’t look for work because they didn’t believe there were jobs available for them.

Job losses have averaged 307,000 per month in the time period between May through September, compared with an average of 645,000 losses per month from November 2008 to April.

Employment in construction declined by 64,000 for the month of September – the industry has averaged a loss of 66,000 in the period from May to September, after an average loss of 117,000 per month from November to April. Since the beginning of the recession, employment in the construction industry has fallen by 1.5 million.

Manufacturing employment decreased by 51,000 in September. Job losses in this sector have average 53,000 per month over the past three months, compared to an average monthly loss of 161,000 in the period from October to June. Manufacturing employment has decreased by 2.1 million since December 2007.

Retail trade employment declined by 39,000 in September, a significantly higher loss than the monthly average of 29,000 in the time period from April to September. The average monthly loss for the preceding six-month period is 68,000.

The number of government jobs decreased by 53,000 in September, with almost half – 24,000 – of the cuts in the non-education component of local government.

The health care industry – the one sector that has grown throughout the recession – added 19,000 jobs in September. Health care has added 559,000 jobs since December 2007, with an average monthly gain of 22,000 in 2009 thus far, and an average of 30,000 per month in 2008.

Employment in transportation and warehousing continued to trend down in September. The number of jobs in financial activities, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and information showed little or no change over the month.

Source:
U.S. Department of Labor

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