September 2011 Employment Report

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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) non-farm payroll employment edged up by 103,000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent. But one should note that the increase in employment partially reflected the return to payrolls of about 45,000 telecommunications workers who had been on strike in August. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from +85,000 to +127,000, and the change for August was revised from 0 to +57,000. September’s private-sector job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care and construction; by contrast, manufacturing suffered losses.
 

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Employment is converging with the previous peak at a slower pace than a year ago and any prior recession going back to 1973.
 

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Part-time employment rose by 444,000 jobs while full-time employment increased by a mere 27,000.
 

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The civilian labor force participation rate ticked higher -- to 64.2 percent -- and the annual percentage increase in average hourly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees regained some of the ground lost in August by rising by 2.0 percent; with the consumer price index for urban consumers rising at a 3.8 percent annual pace, however, wages are falling in real terms (i.e., wage increases are not keeping up with price inflation).

In summary, then, although this employment report was not awful, neither was it “anything to write home about.”