September 2009 Employment Situation — 2009-10-02

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in September (-263,000), and the unemployment rate (9.8 percent) continued to trend up, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The largest job losses were in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, and government. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million, and the unemployment rate has doubled to 9.8 percent. (See table A-1.) Unemployment rates for the major worker groups--adult men (10.3 percent), adult women (7.8 percent), teenagers (25.9 percent), whites (9.0 percent), blacks (15.4 percent), and Hispanics (12.7 percent)--showed little change in September. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.4 percent, not season- ally adjusted. The rates for all major worker groups are much higher than at the start of the recession. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs rose by 603,000 to 10.4 million in September.