Hurricanes cause rare monthly U.S. job loss but rebound likely

WASHINGTON — The U.S. shed 33,000 jobs in September because of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which closed thousands of businesses in Texas and Florida and forced widespread evacuations. It marked the first monthly hiring drop in nearly seven years.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.2 percent from 4.4 percent, the Labor Department said Friday, the lowest level since 2001 and a sign that the job market remains fundamentally solid. Hiring is expected to rebound in coming months as businesses in the Southeast reopen and bring back employees, and construction companies ramp up repair and renovation work.

“The labor market remains in good shape,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial. “The job losses were due to disruptions from hurricanes, not underlying weakness in the economy.”

Last month’s drop was driven by huge losses in restaurants and bars, which accounted for 105,000 fewer jobs, a sign of the damage to Florida’s tourism industry. Roughly 1.5 million people were unable to work last month because of the weather, the government said, the most in 20 years.

Outside of hurricane-hit areas, many Americans found work. The number of people describing themselves as unemployed fell to 6.8 million, the fewest since March 2007, before the Great Recession began.

That sign of health makes it appear all but certain that the Federal Reserve will raise its benchmark short-term interest rate in December.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said she expects pay raises to accelerate as unemployment declines. That, in turn, might lift inflation closer to the Fed’s annual 2 percent target level if companies raised prices to pay for higher salaries.

Hourly workers who couldn’t work because of the storms last month and missed a paycheck would have been counted as not working in the government’s survey of businesses, thereby lowering September’s job total.