The Employment Situation: September 2003 — 2003-10-03

The unemployment rate remained at 6.1 percent in September, and total nonfarm payroll employment was little changed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The number of jobs in manu- facturing declined at a slower pace than in recent months, while employment in temporary help services continued to trend upward. The number of unemployed persons, 9.0 million, was about unchanged in September, and the unemployment rate was 6.1 percent, the same as in August. Unemployment rates for the major worker groups--adult men (5.7 percent), adult women (5.3 percent), teenagers (17.5 percent), whites (5.3 percent), blacks (11.2 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (7.5 percent)--were little changed in September. The unemployment rate for Asians was 6.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) In September, there were 2.1 million unemployed persons who had been looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, representing 23.2 percent of the total unemployed.