The US job market last month showed its strongest signs of turning around since the start of the year, suggesting that a long-anticipated economic recovery might finally be powerful enough to help workers.
Employment rose by 57,000 last month, its first increase since January, and the unemployment rate held steady at 6.1 percent, the US Department of Labor reported Friday.
But the increase in payrolls outside the farming sector was still not large enough to match the growth of the population, and the percentage of adults with jobs fell to the lowest level in 10 years.
"The labor market showed a little bit of life," said Drew Matus, an economist at Lehman Brothers. "However, one month does not erase all of the pain we have seen."
The jobs increase gave the White House a rare piece of good news, after difficult weeks filled with questions about its handling of the economy and the war in Iraq. The Democratic presidential candidates, who had been preparing a new round criticism to accompany Friday's jobs report, found themselves with little new to say.
The employment gains swept across much of the economy, even if they remained small. Retailers added more jobs than they had since July last year, and temporary-help agencies -- one of the first sectors to cut workers when the economy weakened in 2000 -- added to their payrolls for the fifth straight month.
Manufacturers eliminated 29,000 jobs in September, but the loss was the smallest since the summer of last year.
The Labor Department also announced that the economy had lost 98,000 jobs in July and August, 44,000 fewer than initially estimated.
Stocks rose after the employment report was released.
"This changes the mood of the market," said Ian Shepherdson, the chief domestic economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York.
For all of the hints of a turnaround, however, the length and depth of the current jobs slump also began to weigh on workers in new ways last month.
With the economy having lost more than 2.5 million jobs since the start of 2001, employees have continued to lose bargaining power and unemployed people are struggling to find new work.
Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers -- who make up about three-quarters of the work force -- fell last month for the first time since April, by US$0.33, to US$520.67.
The number of people who have been out of work for at least 27 weeks and continue to look for a job jumped to 2.1 million, from 1.9 million. Almost 5 million people were working part-time because they could not find full-time work, up from 4.4 million in August.
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