U.S. Unemployment Rate Declined to 7.9% in Sep’2020

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment rate rose by 661,000 in September, less than half the amount gained in August. The unemployment rate declined by 0.5 percentage points to 7.9 percentage points down from 8.4 percent, only slightly less than in August. The number of unemployed persons declined by 1.0 million to 12.6 million.

Although the US economy has slowly been bouncing back since the lockdown when more than 22 million jobs vanished, the recovery has been slow and still far from being normal. The areas that saw significant job gains were in hospitality, retail trade, health care, and social assistance, and in professional and business services.

• Temporary layoffs decreased by 1.5 million in September to 4.6 million, in comparison to 18.1 million in April
• The number of permanent job losers increased by 345,000 to 3.8 million; this measure has risen by 2.5 million since February
• The number of persons who quit or voluntarily left their previous job and immediately began looking for new employment rose by 212,000 to 801,000
• The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job is 7.2 million

Government employment declined by 216,000 in September. A decrease of 34,000 in the federal government was driven by a decline in the number of temporary Census 2020 workers.

Note: The jobs report before the presidential election.