The government reported Friday that the economy grew by 156,000 new jobs in September. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) the Current Employment Survey of business establishments and government agencies, there were 167,000 new non-farm payroll jobs generated in the private sector in September, but the public sector shed 11,000 jobs. BLS revised August’s new job growth from 151,000 to 167,000 and July’s from 275,000 to 252,000. All these are seasonally adjusted numbers.
September marks the 79th consecutive month of private sector job growth and the 72nd consecutive month of overall job growth, the latter having been hampered by sharp cutbacks in the public sector during the worst of the Great Recession.
The unemployment rate rose slightly to 5.0 percent. That’s the “headline” rate, which the BLS labels U3 and calculates from the Current Population Survey of 60,000 households. In addition to U3, the bureau also provides other estimates of the job situation.
One of these is U6, which gauges both unemployment and underemployment. This category covers people with no job, part-time workers who want a full-time job but can't find one, and some of the nation’s "discouraged" workers. In September, for the third month in a row, U6 was unchanged at 9.7 percent.
As always, it’s best not to put too much emphasis on a single report. Trends are what matter.
Just ahead of the report, when the unemployment rate was still 4.9 percent, Elise Gould at the liberal Economic Policy Institute wrote:
The unemployment rate has fallen steadily over the last six years, and many have said that the current rate of 4.9 percent means we are back (or at least very close) to full employment—meaning that pushing unemployment any lower would cause inflation to accelerate above the Federal Reserve’s preferred 2 percent target. That is why some observers are calling upon the Fed to raise rates—before workers see the economic recovery translate into consistently strong nominal wage growth.
But the headline unemployment rate (which is notably higher than previous labor market peaks) continues to understate slack in the labor market. Today’s 4.9 percent unemployment rate is associated with much lower [prime-age employment-to-population ratio] EPOPs—the share of the working age population who is actually working—than in the recent past. [...]
Before we can say that the labor market is truly back to full employment, we need more months of strong job growth—to employ new labor market entrants, unemployed workers, and the 2 million-plus “missing workers” who have left or never entered the labor market because of weak job opportunities.
ADDITIONAL DATA FROM THE SEPTEMBER JOB REPORT:
The U3 unemployment rate differs by race and sex: Adult men: 4.7 percent; Adult women: 4.4 percent; Whites: 4.4 percent; Blacks: 8.3 percent; Asians: 3.9 percent; Hispanics: 6.4 percent; American Indians: (not counted monthly); Teenagers: 15.8 percent; (for teenagers of color, the unemployment rate is usually much higher.)
The civilian workforce in September rose by 444,000 after having risen by 176,000 in August. The employment-population ratio rose to 59.8 percent, and the labor force participation rate rose to 62.9 percent.
Average wages rose from September 2015 to September 2016 by 2.6 percent.
The BLS includes a "confidence level" in its estimate of plus or minus 105,000 jobs. This means the "real" number of new jobs created in September was not 156,000 but ranged between 51,000 and 261,000.
Another monthly calculation the bureau makes is the job situation for Americans aged 25-54. People in this range are the most likely age group to have a job or be looking for one. The employment-population ratio for the 25-54 age group peaked at 81.9 percent in April 2000 and sank to a low of 74.8 percent in November 2010. Since then, it has been rising gradually. In September, for the third time this year, it hit 78 percent, the highest level since November 2008.
Hours & Wages:
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 5 cents an hour to $21.68 in September.
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls rose in September to 34.4 hours.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose 6 cents an hour in September to $25.79
• The manufacturing workweek in September rose 0.1 hours to 40.7 hours.
• The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls in September remained unchanged at 33.5 hours.
Job gains and losses in September for selected categories:
- Professional services: + 67,000
- Temporary help services: + 23,200
- Transportation & warehousing: - 9,000
- Financial activities: + 6,000
- Leisure & hospitality: + 15,000
- Information: 1,000
- Education and health services: + 29,000
- Health care & social assistance: + 21,800
- Retail trade: + 22,000
- Construction: 23,000
- Manufacturing: - 13,000
- Mining and Logging: 0
Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in September for the previous 10 years compared with this September’s gain of 156,000.
September 2006: + 181,000
September 2007: - 24,000
September 2008: - 266,000
September 2009: - 212,000
September 2010: - 34,000
September 2011: + 107,000
September 2012: + 190,000
September 2013: + 269,000
September 2014: + 218,000
September 2015: + 150,000
Average monthly number of new jobs created or lost in:
- 2006: 174,000
- 2007: 96,000
- 2008: -297,000
- 2009: -423,000
- 2010: 133,000
- 2011: 166,000
- 2012: 179,000
- 2013: 193,000
- 2014: 251,000
- 2015: 229,000
- 2016: 178,000