October 03, 2014
The economy added 248,000 jobs in September. This growth, along with upward revisions to the prior two month’s data, brings the 3-month average to 224,000. The unemployment rate also dropped to 5.9 percent, the first time it has been below 6.0 percent since July of 2008. In spite of the rapid job creation, there was no change in the employment-to-population ratio which remained fixed at 59.0 percent. In fact, labor force participation fell by 0.3 percentage points for white men in September and 0.2 percentage points for white women.
The number of people involuntarily employed part-time by fell 174,000 to 7,103,000. This is extraordinarily high given the unemployment rate. The number of people choosing to work part time rose slightly and now stands 642,000 above its year-ago level. This presumably is the result of people taking advantage of Obamacare and getting insurance through the exchanges or expanded Medicaid rather than their employers.
By sector, the biggest job gains were in retail (35,300), employment services (33,600), health care (22,600) and restaurants (20,400). Wages have grown at a 2.0 percent annual rate over the last three months, the same as their rate of increase over the last year.
*CEPR’s Jobs Flash is published each month upon release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment report. It previews the more detailed Jobs Byte, which is published later in the day*
