The job market in the United States still seems strong: the unemployment rate continues to fall in September over a month, helped by job creation well above expectations, a little over a month from American presidential elections.
Last month, the unemployment rate returned to 4.1%, a slight decrease compared to the month of August (4.2%) but which confirms the trend of this summer, with unemployment slowly approaching the 4% after climbing in the first half.
The September drop is explained, according to data published Friday by the Labor Department, by a sharp increase in job creation, which analysts saw continuing to slow down.
Thus 254,000 jobs were created in September, both in the public and private sectors, compared to 159,000 in August, a figure which was revised upwards.
The Labor Department also revised upwards those of previous months.
A surprise for analysts who expected 135,000 jobs created, according to the consensus published by briefing.com.
US President Joe Biden welcomed this “good news for American workers and their families”.
“We have created 16 million jobs, kept unemployment low and wages are growing faster than prices,” added President Biden, who will leave the White House on January 20.
The September figures take into account the impact of Hurricane Francine, which hit southern Louisiana but whose impact on employment in the state was ultimately limited.
However, it does not include the economic and social consequences of Hurricane Helene, which devastated the southeastern coast of the United States, from Florida to Virginia, at the end of the month.
Focused on a few sectors
These figures “confirm the words of the president of the Federal Reserve (Fed): the economy is doing well, it is still creating jobs and shows no sign of contraction”, estimated HFE economists in a note.
If unemployment is down over one month, it is however up significantly compared to September 2023, by 0.3 percentage points, underlines the Department of Labor, which represents 500,000 additional job seekers.
The American job market also appears to have generally returned to its level before the COVID-19 pandemic, with a participation rate that has remained unchanged for three months, at 62.7% of the working age population. and a number of part-time employees also stable, at 4.6 million.
“At all levels”, the September figures “show a more solid job market than expected”, confirmed for his part the chief economist of MBA SVP, Mike Fratantoni, “but the growth was concentrated on some sectors, such as bars and restaurants, which are likely to suffer if consumers continue to reduce non-essential spending.
In detail, employment in the catering and bars sector has in fact increased the most, by 69,000 jobs, which is much higher than the monthly average over the last twelve months (14,000).
The health sector is also growing, although less than its monthly average for the last twelve months, which is in line with the trend also observed for public jobs.
On the other hand, sectors, industrial or in the extraction of raw materials, commerce or transport, did not experience any major variation last month.
On the remuneration side, hourly wages increased by 0.4% over one month, 4% over one year, in the private sector.
The good performance of the job market, which the Fed now considers to monitor as much as the level of inflation, removes the possibility of emergency intervention by the latter. The US central bank cut its rates for the first time since 2020 in September, hitting hard with a half-point cut.
The markets are expecting a further reduction at the next meeting of the Fed’s Monetary Policy Committee in early November, which should be around 0.25 percentage points this time.