September Employment and Unemployment: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a report today on employment and unemployment for September (pdf summary available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf). Highlights of the report:

 

Unemployment Rate

• The unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.6% in September.
• The percentage of long-term unemployed (those unemployed for 27 weeks or longer) was little changed in September at a level of 41.7%, or 6.1 million persons. 
• The size of the labor force grew by 48,000 in September, but remains 798,000 below its peak level in May, 2009.
• There were 14.8 million unemployed persons in September.

Payroll Employment

• Total non-farm payroll employment declined by 95,000 in September, following a loss of 57,000 in August (revised from a loss of 54,000) and a loss of 66,000 in July (revised from a loss of 54,000).  
• The loss of temporary Census jobs (-77,000) and local government jobs (-76,000) were responsible for the decline. 
• Private sector employment increased by 64,000 in September.  The largest gains came from: food services and drinking places (+34,000), employment services (+28,000) and healthcare (+24,000).  Construction (-21,000) accounted for the largest private sector loss. 
• The average workweek was unchanged at 34.2 hours for all private nonfarm employees. 
• Employment has fallen by 7.8 million since the start of the recession in December, 2007.