Economy Sheds More Jobs in September

Another 95,000 jobs disappeared in September even as the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.6 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The private sector actually added jobs -- 64,000 of them -- while government employment fell by 159,000. Much of the latter reflected both a drop in the number of temporary jobs for the 2010 Census and losses in local government.

Overall, the number of people who were without jobs in September totaled 14.8 million, about the same as the month before.

Private economist Joel Naroff calls it "a mediocre but totally expected report. The private sector continues to add jobs but the pace is quite sluggish and not enough to change the unhappy mood of consumers." Bottom line, he says is, "the economy is growing at a tepid pace."

Private sector

Major gainers in private sector employment last month were food services and drinking places (34,000 jobs in September and 104,000 so far this year), employment services (28,000) and health care (24,000) in September. Health care employment has risen by an average of 21,000 jobs per month this year.

Employment in manufacturing changed little and -- on net -- has been essentially flat since May. The industry added 134,000 jobs during the first five months of the year.

Employment in Construction employment, on the other hand, edged down 21,000 last month partly offsetting an employment gain in August. The changes in both August and September were concentrated among nonresidential specialty trade contractors. Construction employment has shown little overall change since February.

Public sector

Government employment losses came on a combination of federal and local cuts. There was a loss of 77,000 temporary Census jobs, leaving just 6,000 temporary census workers on the federal government payroll -- down from a peak of 564,000 in May.

Employment in local government dropped by 76,000 in September with job losses in both education and non-education.

Other highlights

· The number of people employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose by 612,000 over the month -- to 9.5 million. Over the past two months, the number of such workers has increased by 943,000. These individuals were working part time be- cause their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

· The average workweek for all employees was unchanged at 34.2 hours. The manufacturing workweek for all employees decreased by 0.1 hour to 40.1 hours, and factory overtime was unchanged at 3.0 hours.

· Average hourly earnings increased by a penny -- to $22.67 in September. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.7 percent.