And, it wasn’t a pleasant surprise.
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The number of new jobs created in September amounted to just 142,000 – significantly below the 203,000 the had been forecast. Restaurants added 20,700 jobs, somewhat below the 29,000 average over the a year ago. August job gains were revised downward by 37,000, to 136,000, and July’s figures were reduced by 22,000, to 223,000.
The gains tilted to lower-paying industries instead of higher- paying export-related fields, helping to explain why average hourly earnings fell 1 cent to $25.09.
Job growth in September was hurt by a decline in the labor force participation rate – a measure of how many people are working or looking for work – to 62.4 from 62.6. The unemployment rate had been declining steadily, but economists had attributed this to the lowest labor force participation in a generation. Consensus among economists was for 2o0,000 new jobs to be added. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been up before the jobs report was released, was down about 200 points two hours later.
Unexpectedly weak job creation in the American economy in September prompted traders to dampen expectations of an imminent Federal Reserve interest rate rise and stoked fears that troubles in the global financial markets are having an impact on the US.
The number of Americans who have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer was essentially unchanged last month, at 2.1 million, constituting 26.6 percent of the unemployed.
Fed officials have been looking to raise rates this year because of labor-market strength.
Given the latest numbers, monthly payroll gains so far in 2015 have averaged 198,000.
Hiring in the private sector picked up to a 118,000 person pace following a reading of 100,000 for the month before. With GDP growth hovering near 2.0 percent, weaker job growth is to be expected, but it will make it much more hard for the Federal Reserve Board to raise rates this year. The unemployment rate is derived from a separate survey of households that showed 350,000 workers dropping out of the labour force last month, as well as a lower level of employment.
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Last month, businesses added 118,000 jobs, driven by advances in health care, leisure and hospitality and professional and business services. Friday’s report is not an encouraging number for a rate hike at the end of October, experts argue. Mining employment contracted in July, August and September; manufacturing employment contracted in August and September.
