Unemployment Rate Hits Four-Year High In US, September Jobs Report Shows | US News
Economic policymakers remain divided on the future trajectory of the job market amid various challenges.
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The latest analysis of the US labor market has shown an unexpected rebound of 119,000 jobs in September but a loss for August and a lower total for July. The long-delayed jobs report, released on Thursday, was touted as “great progress” for the US economy by the White House, which highlighted gains in the private sector.
“Almost all of these new jobs were in the private sector and went to American-born workers instead of illegal aliens,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement.
But the report, which was originally scheduled for October 3 but released after a seven-week delay due to the government shutdown, captured a confusing picture.
There was a burst of hiring, but also the highest unemployment rate in four years, Axios reported in its analysis of the report. There is no strong evidence that the labor market is rapidly weakening or gaining momentum and economic policymakers are hugely divided over which way the job market will tip in the face of a slew of economic upheaval from AI, immigration and fast-moving trade policy.
Jobs report: What do the numbers show?
When it comes to solely numbers, employment rose by 119,000 in September, the largest payroll gain since April, and unemployment rate edged up by 0.1 percentage point to 4.4%, the highest since Oct. 2021.
In addition to the September jobs report, the Department of Labor released new figures for the week ending November 1 showing that the number of people receiving unemployment benefits hit a four-year high.
In total, 1.8 million people were receiving unemployment benefits that week, an 18,000 increase from the prior week. Meanwhile, the number of initial jobless claims for the week ending on November 15 fell by 8,000 to 220,000, CNN reported.
Notably, this will be the last jobs report out before the Fed’s policy meeting.
