September 2010 Employment Situation — 2010-10-08

Nonfarm payroll employment edged down (-95,000) in September, and the unem- ployment rate was unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics reported today. Government employment declined (-159,000), reflec- ting both a drop in the number of temporary jobs for Census 2010 and job losses in local government. Private-sector payroll employment continued to trend up modestly (+64,000). The number of unemployed persons, at 14.8 million, was essentially un- changed in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.8 percent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (26.0 percent), whites (8.7 percent), blacks (16.1 percent), and Hispanics (12.4 percent) showed little or no change in September. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.4 percent, not seasonally adjusted.