Employers added 103,000 jobs in September, although 45,000 of them were telecommunications workers returning from strike, according to the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report. The nation’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.1%.
Since April of this year, unemployment has remained essentially unchanged between 9% and 9.2%. Employers have added an average of 72,000 jobs per month over that time. The Federal Reserve estimates that more than 110,000 jobs a month are needed for labor market growth to outpace population growth and decrease the unemployment rate.
The nation’s unemployment rate has now been above 8.5% for 31 consecutive months. During the early 80s recession unemployment reached those levels for only 24 months. It has been 27 months since the National Bureau of Economic Research determined that the Obama recovery began, and the nation’s unemployment rate has only fallen .3%. By this point in the Reagan recovery, unemployment had dropped 3.6% to 7.2%.
