Hiring Stalls, Unemployment Creeps Up: The Last Jobs Report Before the Midterms Is Ugly
The government added just 29,000 jobs in September as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% and two months of prior gains were revised sharply lower.
The U.S. economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, the government reported Friday, as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% and two months of previously reported gains were revised sharply lower — a weak final snapshot of the labor market before voters head to the polls next month.
The payroll gain came in well below forecasters' expectations and far under the 45,000-job monthly average of the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Situation report. The unemployment rate has now held in a narrow 4.1%-to-4.3% band since March, but September's reading was its highest point in that stretch.
The Revisions Sting Worse Than the Headline
Perhaps more telling than September's weak number: the BLS revised July's already-soft job growth down by 31,000, turning a previously reported gain of 21,000 into an outright loss of 10,000 jobs. August's figure was cut by 29,000, from 162,000 down to 133,000. Together, the revisions erased 60,000 jobs the economy had appeared to add just a month or two ago.
Hiring was uneven across industries. Construction added 11,000 jobs and manufacturing added 9,000, but health care — usually one of the labor market's steadiest engines — added just 17,000, less than half its 12-month average. Financial activities shed 7,000 jobs, extending a decline of 129,000 positions since a peak in mid-2025. Average hourly earnings rose a modest 0.1%, to $37.81, and the labor-force participation rate was essentially flat at 61.8%.
29,000 JOBS ADDED. 60,000 JOBS ERASED BY REVISIONS.
The report lands as the sole monthly jobs reading voters will see before the midterm elections, giving both parties a final data point to spin. The White House has pointed to construction and manufacturing gains as evidence of resilience; critics note the broad-based revisions suggest the slowdown has been underway, undetected, for months.
For the Federal Reserve, which has leaned on labor-market data to justify its recent rate moves, a cooling jobs market paired with a still-elevated unemployment rate complicates the calculus heading into its next meeting — a soft labor market normally argues for lower rates, even as the central bank keeps one eye on inflation.