Unemployment still stuck at 9.1 percent

GlobalPost

Unemployment in the United States is still stuck at 9.1 percent, though a report from the Labor Department announces that 103,000 new jobs were added in September.

The Labor Department also announced on Friday that it has revised the numbers from the previous two months to show that companies had hired at a stronger pace than first thought. 

According to the Houston Chronicle:

While the report was clearly better than feared, it also showed the economy is not gaining much momentum, said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets.
"It moves you away from the ledge," he said.

According to the report, for the last five months, employers have added an average of only 72,000 jobs. Almost twice as many need to be created every month to keep up with population growth, reports USA Today

Most of the new hires, reports Fox News, were 45,000 Verizon employees who had previously been on strike. The private sector added 137,000 jobs in September, but 34,000 government jobs were lost. Local governments cut teachers and school employees. 

Among the industries in which job gains occurred are construction retail, temporary help services and health care, while manufacturing jobs were cut for the second month in a row, reports USA Today. 

According to USA today, the economy grew at an annual rate of only 0.9 percent in the first six months of the year. Europe's debt crisis coupled with the declining stock market have led to fears that the economy might be headed towards another recession. 

Nearly 4.5 million people have been unemployed for more than a year.


 

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