Job creation in the United States was well below expectations in September and almost halved compared to August, further bad news for Joe Biden, who has made employment one of his priorities.
A total of 194,000 jobs were created last month, when analysts expected 450,000, the labor department said on Friday.
It is also well below the 366,000 in August, according to revised data up sharply and also released on Friday.
However, these data reflect the situation at the start of the month, i.e. at the time of the peak linked to the Delta variant, the data having been collected during the week of September 12.
In addition, the exceptional unemployment benefits, which had been paid since the start of the pandemic, had only just expired. And schools had just reopened in many states.
Decline in unemployment rate
The leisure and hospitality sectors, professional and commercial services, retail trade, as well as transport and logistics, were the ones that created the most jobs, the labor department said in its press release. .
As for the unemployment rate, it fell by 0.4 point to 4.8%, this taking into account job creations in August which were higher than expected.
However, there are still 5 million jobs missing compared to the situation before the pandemic, when the labor market was at its best.
/ ATS
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