WASHINGTON, DC – In the latest Joint Economic Committee Employment Update, jobs increased by 119,000 in September, more than expected and a much-needed boost after an abysmal report in August that revised numbers showed a loss of 4,000 after an initial estimate of only a 22,000 increase. The unemployment rate remained relatively steady, ticking up 0.1 percentage points to 4.4 percent, and the labor force participation rates ticked up at the same rate of 0.1 percentage points to 62.4 percent. The broadest measure of unemployment (U-6, which adds underemployment to unemployment), decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 8.0 percent. Today’s release of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the first employment information provided by the government since the government shutdown impacted the agency.

The best performing sectors from August 2025 to September 2025 continued to be private education and health services (+59K) and leisure and hospitality (+47K). The worst performing sectors were professional and business services (-20K) and manufacturing (-6K). Over the past year (September 2024-September 2025), private education and health services (+823K) and leisure and hospitality (+235K) performed best, while manufacturing (-94K) and the federal government (-90K) experienced the largest losses.

Nominal earnings were up year over year. For all employees, hourly nominal earnings increased 3.79 percent while weekly earnings in the category also increased at the same rate (3.79 percent). Nominal average weekly earnings over the past year increased the most in the information sector (7.47 percent) and the least in the private education and health services sector (1.55 percent).

The August Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), released on September 30, showed the number of unemployed (7.384 million) outpacing the number of job openings (7.227 million), a slightly larger gap than in August. September JOLTS data will be released with the October data on December 9.

For the full JEC Employment Update, visit https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/employment-update. 

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