September 2025 BLS jobs report: payrolls grew by 119,000 jobs. Unemployment rate increases from 4.3% to 4.4%

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Note that this is the delayed release of figures for September, not October. Release was delayed by the government shutdown.

BLS will not release October’s jobs report separately, instead combining it with the November report, which has been pushed to Dec. 16 from its original release date of Dec. 5. There will be no unemployment rate released for October due to household data that the BLS will not be able to collect.

Consensus forecast was for +53,000 jobs and for UR to remain at 4.3%, so actual figures surprised on the high side for both.

Jobs figures for July were revised down by 7,000, from +79,000 to +72,000, and the figures for August were revised down by 26,000, from +22,000 to -4,000. With these revisions, employment in July and August combined is 33,000 lower than previously reported.

FRED graph of monthly change (in thousands) in nonfarm payroll employment levels since Jan 2021.

FRED graph of the headline unemployment rate since Jan 2021.

FRED graph of more expansive unemployment definitions (U-3 thru U-6) since Jan 2021