This morning’s employment report from the Department of Labor shows non-farm payrolls up 80,000, with unemployment down slightly to 9.0%. Investors expected the report to show around 95,000 jobs added.
According to the report, employment in the private sector rose, with modest job growth continuing in professional and businesses services, leisure and hospitality, health care and mining. Government employment continued to trend down.
Both the number of unemployed persons (13.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.0%) changed little over the month. The unemployment rate has remained in a narrow range from 9.0% to 9.2% since April.
Juli says: Economists say it takes at least 150,000 jobs added each month just to keep pace with population growth. That level of job growth was seen the previous month, as revised data shows 158,000 jobs were created in September.
