October 11, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Payroll employment in September

Total nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in September 2005 (-35,000), seasonally adjusted. This followed job gains of 277,000 in July and 211,000 in August (as revised).

[Chart data—TXT]

Hurricane Katrina caused job losses in September among many industries in the affected areas. At the national level, these storm-related losses may have been either offset or exacerbated in some industries by developments in the rest of the country.

Retail trade lost 88,000 jobs in September, with declines spread across
several component industries. Over the prior 12 months, employment in retail trade had increased by 18,000 per month on average.

Employment in the leisure and hospitality industry fell by 80,000 in September, partly due to the hurricane. Employment in food services, which includes restaurants and drinking places, decreased by 54,000 over the month. Amusements, gambling, and recreation lost 19,000 jobs in September.

Manufacturing employment was down by 27,000 and has declined by 118,000 over the year. The September job decline was concentrated in transportation equipment, reflecting a strike of 18,000 workers in the aerospace industry.

Health care employment continued to grow in September, rising by 37,000.

Professional and business services employment rose by 52,000 in September. More than half of the employment increase was in temporary help services (32,000), where hurricane recovery efforts may have boosted hiring.

These data on industry employment are from the Current Employment Statistics program and have been seasonally adjusted. More information can be found in The Employment Situation: September 2005 (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 05-1946. Data for the most recent two months are preliminary.  

Note: Data for September 2005 are the first to reflect the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Rita made landfall during the September data collection period. As a result, response rates were lower than normal in some areas. However, because the survey reference period occurred before Hurricane Rita struck, the impact of this storm on measures of employment was negligible.