Oct. 6 (UPI) — The U.S. economy added more jobs than expected in September while unemployment rates held steady, the Department of Labor reported on Friday.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 336,000 in September, surpassing the average monthly gain of 267,000 over the past year, with leisure and hospitality, health care, government, professional, scientific and technical services and social assistance all added jobs.
Meanwhile, the report found that the unemployment rate held at 3.8%, with the number of unemployed people “essentially unchanged” at 6.4 million.
Friday’s government jobs report came after ADP’s National Employment Report just two days ago showed 89,000 private sector jobs created in September.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 5.5 million people were not in the labor force but want jobs.
“These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the four weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job,” the BLS said. “Among those not in the labor force who wanted a job, the number of persons marginally attached to the labor force changed little at 1.5 million in September. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but had not looked for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.”
On Tuesday the Labor Department reported that the number of job openings rose to 9.6 million for August.
In September the average U.S. workweek for all employees was 34.4 hours while the manufacturing workweek was 40.1 hours.