Payrolls Rise by 96,000 in September; Manufacturing Drops 18,000 Jobs
mployers added 96,000 workers to payrolls in August, but the manufacturing sector reduced payrolls by 18,000 jobs after increasing over the previous two months, the Labor Department said Friday.
Economists expected payrolls to rise by 158,000, the Associated Press reported. The September increase followed a revised gain of 128,000 in August that was originally reported to be 144,000, Labor said.
Labor also said the unemployment rate, measured through a separate survey of households, held steady from August at 5.4%, the lowest since October 2001.
The factory sector, one of trucking’s largest and most important customers, lost 18,000 jobs, the most since December, Bloomberg said. The manufacturing by six minutes to 40.8 hours and overtime held steady at 4.6 hours for a fifth straight month.
Labor said employment in service-producing industries rose 109,000 in September after rising 113,000 in August.
Labor said that while the four hurricanes that swept through the Southeast in August in September held down employment growth, it concluded their impact was minimal.
The department also said the economy may have added 236,000 jobs in the 12 months ended in March, Bloomberg said. Current figures show 709,000 jobs were created in that period.
The revisions would leave the economy with 600,000 fewer jobs than when President Bush took office in January 2001, Bloomberg said.
The United States has added 1.4 million jobs in 2004 and had a net loss of about 913,000 since President Bush took office in January 2001. Payrolls have grown 12 straight months.
Economists want to see at least 200,000 net jobs added a month on a consistent basis before declaring the labor market fully healed, the Associated Press reported.
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