The Employment Situation: September 2002 — 2002-10-04

Both nonfarm payroll employment and the unemployment rate were essentially unchanged in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job losses in manufacturing and transportation offset gains in finance and health services. The number of unemployed persons (8.1 million) and the unemployment rate (5.6 percent) were essentially unchanged in September. The jobless rates for the major worker groups--adult men (5.2 percent), adult women (4.9 percent), teenagers (15.7 percent), whites (5.1 percent), blacks (9.6 percent), and Hispanics (7.4 percent)--showed no statistically signi- ficant change in September. (See tables A-1 and A-2.) Total employment, as measured by the household survey, rose by 711,000 to 135.2 million in September, after seasonal adjustment. Nearly half of this increase was among teens, who experience large seasonal swings in employment between August and September. The total employment-population ratio was up by 0.2 percentage point to 63.0 percent.