Delayed September Report Shows U.S. Added 119,000 Jobs

November 20, 2025 – After a delay due to the government shutdown, employment rose by 119,000 in September as the U.S. unemployment rate stands at 4.4 percent, according to the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Employment continued to trend up in healthcare, food services and drinking places, and social assistance. Job losses occurred in transportation and warehousing and in federal government. The number of unemployed people, at 7.6 million, changed little in September.

“September’s jobs report shows the labor market still had resilience before the shutdown, beating payroll expectations, but the picture remains muddy with August jobs revised to a job loss and the unemployment rate increasing,” said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at jobs site Glassdoor. “These numbers are a snapshot from two months ago and they don’t reflect where we stand now in November.”

“Despite the fact that today’s jobs report is very backward looking, it’s making markets move,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. “Equities like the fact that payrolls were stronger than expected, suggesting the economy is still on a firm footing, while the bond market likes the rise in unemployment and slowdown in wage growth which may keep the case for a December Fed cut just about alive.”

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult women (4.2 percent) and Asians (4.4 percent) increased in September. The jobless rates for adult men (4.0 percent), teenagers (13.2  percent), Whites (3.8 percent), Blacks (7.5 percent), and Hispanics (5.5 percent) showed little or no change over the month.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) changed little at 1.8 million in September. The long-term unemployed accounted for 23.6 percent of all unemployed people. The number of people employed part time for economic reasons, at 4.6 million, changed little in September. These individuals would have preferred full-time employment but were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs.

The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job decreased by 421,000 to 5.9 million in September. These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the four weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job.

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Among those not in the labor force who wanted a job, the number of people marginally attached  to the labor force changed little at 1.7 million in September. These individuals wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but had not looked for work in the four weeks preceding the survey. The number of discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed that no jobs were available for them, also changed little over the month at 557,000.

Where Job Growth Occurred

• In September, healthcare added 43,000 jobs, about the same as the average monthly gain of 42,000 over the prior 12 months. Over the month, employment gains occurred in ambulatory healthcare services (+23,000) and hospitals (+16,000).
• Employment in food services and drinking places continued to trend up in September (+37,000).
• In September, social assistance employment continued to trend up (+14,000), reflecting continued job growth in individual and family services (+20,000).
• Employment in transportation and warehousing declined by 25,000 in September as job losses occurred in warehousing and storage (-11,000) and couriers and messengers (-7,000).
• Federal government employment continued to decline in September (-3,000) and is down by 97,000 since reaching a peak in January. (Employees on paid leave or receiving ongoing severance pay are counted as employed in the establishment survey.)
• Employment showed little or no change over the month in other major industries, including mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; construction; manufacturing; wholesale trade; retail trade; information; financial activities; professional and business services; and other services.

The Private Sector

Private sector employment increased by 42,000 jobs in October and pay was up 4.5 percent year-over-year according to the October ADP National Employment Report produced by ADP Research in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. “Private employers added jobs in October for the first time since July, but hiring was modest relative to what we reported earlier this year,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist, ADP. “Meanwhile, pay growth has been largely flat for more than a year, indicating that shifts in supply and demand are balanced.”

The ADP National Employment Report is an independent measure of the labor market based on the anonymized weekly payroll data of more than 26 million private-sector employees in the United States. ADP’s Pay Insights captures over 15 million individual pay change observations each month. Together, the jobs report and pay insights use ADP’s fine-grained data to provide a representative and high-frequency picture of the private-sector labor market.

Last month delivered a rebound from two months of weak hiring, but the bounce wasn’t broad-based. Education and health care, and trade, transportation, and utilities led the growth. For the third straight month, employers shed jobs in professional business services, information, and leisure and hospitality.

Related: Global Employers Take Cautious Approach to Q4 Hiring

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media