September Employment Report…

Bureau of Labor Statistics” Employment Situation Summary “In September, the unemployment rate declined…

…by 0.2 percentage point to 5.9
percent…. The civilian labor force participation rate, at 62.7 percent, changed little…. The employment-population ratio was 59.0 percent for the fourth consecutive month…. The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in September at 7.1 million…. 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, essentially unchanged from a year earlier….

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 248,000 in September, compared with an average monthly gain of 213,000 over the prior 12 months…. The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls
edged up by 0.1 hour to 34.6 hours…. The average
workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrollsedged down by 0.1 hour to 33.7 hours…. Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls, at $24.53,
changed little in September….

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from +212,000 to +243,000, and the change for August was revised from +142,000 to +180,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 69,000 more
than previously reported…

I believe that, counting revisions, this is the fourth-best monthly establishment employment game performance of this recovery, exceeded only by the April to May 2010 jump, the March to April 2011 jump, and the December 2011 to January 2012 jump. The big lesson is that the fact that this is a strong relative report in this recovery underscores how weak the recovery has been. The little lesson is that we may be, finally, on a track to see recovery of the employment-to-population ratio to where it demographically should be.