The Employment Situation: September 2004 — 2004-10-08

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend upward in September, increasing by 96,000, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.4 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Over the prior 3 months, payroll employment rose by 103,000 on average. In September, modest job gains occurred in a few service-providing industries. The number of unemployed persons was unchanged at 8.0 million in September, and the unemployment rate held at 5.4 percent, seasonally adjusted. The jobless rate is down from its most recent high of 6.3 percent in June 2003; most of this decline occurred in the second half of last year. The jobless rates for the major worker groups--adult men (5.0 percent), adult women (4.7 percent), teenagers (16.6 percent), whites (4.7 percent), blacks (10.3 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (7.1 percent)--showed little or no change in September. The unemployment rate for Asians was 4.3 percent, not seasonally ad- justed.