Total nonfarm payroll rose by 194,000 in September, down from 366,000 new positions in August, according to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage points in September, down to 4.8%. The number of unemployed persons fell by 710,000 to 7.7 million, down considerably from their highs at the end of 2020 but still elevated above pre-pandemic levels—3.5% and 5.7 million in February 2020, respectively.
Of the unemployed, the number of permanent job losers fell by 236,000 to 2.3 million, up by 953,000 since February 2020. The number of persons on temporary layoff remained little changed in September at 1.1 million, down considerably from 18 million in April 2020 but up 374,000 from February 2020. The number of long-term unemployed fell by 496,000 in September, down to 2.7 million—still 1.6 million higher than in February 2020.
According to the Household Survey Supplemental Data, 13.2% of employed persons reported that they had teleworked because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Five million persons reported that they had been unable to work because their employer had closed or lost business due to the pandemic, down from 5.6 million in August. Of that number, 15.5% reported that they had received some pay for hours not worked.
The largest job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade, and transportation and warehousing. Employment in public education declined over the course of the month.
“September’s job report captures two things: the delta variant and the ongoing labor shortage,” says Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda. “Little tweaks by consumers and businesses in response to the virus proved to have an outsized impact on the economy in September. Further, public school hiring was lower than seasonal norms presumably as administrators struggled to find workers to fill open positions.”
Overall, construction employment rose by 22,000 in September, but shows little net change over the course of the year. “Residential construction employment (including specialty trade contractors) grew by just 3,400 in September, a marked deceleration from August’s pace. More robust job growth will be needed to help builders work through their current backlog of orders, which we believe should help to ease supply constraints in this sector,” says Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae.
