95,000 Jobs Go Bye-Bye Last Month

The economy lost 95,000 jobs last month. Unemployment held steady at 9.6%. The real jobless rate, however, jumped to 17.1%.

The steep drop was far worse than economists had been predicting. Most estimates expected a loss of only a few thousand jobs.

“September’s U.S. payroll report adds to the evidence that the recovery is losing what little forward momentum it had,” said Paul Ashworth, senior United States economist at Capital Economics.

While total government jobs fell by 159,000, private sector companies added 64,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate, which measures the percentage of workers who are actively looking for but unable to find jobs, stayed flat at 9.6 percent.

A broader measure of unemployment, which includes people who are working part-time because they cannot find full-time jobs and people who have given up looking for work, rose to 17.1 percent from 16.7 percent in August.

Of the loss in government jobs, 77,000 were temporary Census Bureau employees while 76,000 worked for local governments. State governments lost 7,000 jobs, as well.

Splitting out the decimals, the unemployment rate dropped from from 9.642% to 9.579%.

Posted by on October 8th, 2010 at 10:16 am


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