The economy is adding just enough jobs to keep unemployment low The bottom didn’t drop out of the labor market after a poor September U.S. jobs report. But what it did show is hiring is slow and it’s a tough time to find work. The economy added just 29,000 new jobs last month, down from 133,000 in August.
The strong August employment report had raised hopes that the labor market was on the upswing after two years of malaise. The disappointment in September dashed those hopes, for now. Don’t Short Yourself offers weekly money tips to help you earn it, stack it and grow it.
I would like to receive updates and special offers from Dow Jones and affiliates. I can unsubscribe at any time. Call it not bad — or “stable,” as senior Federal Reserve officials put it.
The economy is still adding enough new jobs to absorb most new entrants in the labor force and keep the unemployment rate low. The U.S. needs to add about 50,000 jobs a month, economists estimate, to keep the jobless rate at or close to its current rate of 4.2%. Well, the economy created an average of 51,000 new jobs in the past three months and 60,000 in the past 12 months.
Those numbers are even larger if federal job cuts by the Trump administration are removed from the equation. Hiring has also begun to broaden out beyond healthcare, which accounted for 95% of all new jobs in 2025. Construction companies and manufacturers in particular have benefited from the boom in artificial intelligence.
They’ve been hiring more people to build data centers and to supply the materials and manufactured goods used in construction. A “stable” labor market might not sound exciting, but the effect has been to keep unemployment historically low. The jobless rate stood at 4.2% in September and it’s been below 5% for five years in a row.
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