Unemployment falls, but hiring slows

WASHINGTON — The final jobs report before Election Day a month from now showed hiring slowed in September even as the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.9% — a mixed result for President Donald Trump, who has staked his reelection in part on the economy.

The Labor Department said Friday that employers added just 661,000 jobs last month amid the coronavirus outbreak, down from 1.5 million in August and 1.8 million in July.

Unemployment fell from 8.4% in August, but that mainly reflected a decline in the number of people seeking work, rather than a surge in hiring. The government doesn’t count people as unemployed if they aren’t actively looking for a job.

“There seems to be a worrisome loss of momentum,” said Drew Matus, an economist at

MetLife Investment Management. “There’s a lot of caution on the part of employers.”

With September’s hiring gain, the economy has now recovered slightly more than half the 22 million jobs wiped out by the coronavirus, which has killed over 200,000 Americans and infected more than 7 million. With many businesses and customers plagued by fear and uncertainty, some economists say it could take as long as late 2023 for the job market to fully recover.

This week, moreover, brought a new wave of layoff announcements reflecting the continuing slump in travel and tourism: Disney is cutting 28,000 jobs, Allstate will shed 3,800, and U.S. airlines said as many as 40,000 employees are losing their jobs this month as federal aid to the industry expires.

In another problematic sign in Friday’s report, the number of laid-off workers who say their jobs are gone for good rose from 3.4 million to 3.8 million.