Unemployment rate remains at 9.1 percent

The United States added a better-than-expected 103,000 new jobs to the economy last month, while the unemployment rate remained stagnant at 9.1 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday.

But the biggest factor in the number of jobs created was the return to work of 45,000 striking Verizon employees which accounted for nearly half of the job growth.

The number of new jobs in September isn’t even enough to keep pace with the population growth or to substantially lower the unemployment rate. The economy needs to create a net of at least 125,000-150,000 jobs a month to keep up with a rising population.

The unemployment rate has been stuck at 9.1 percent for the past three months.

And the broader unemployment rate actually jumped from 16.2 percent in August to 16.5 percent this month. The figure includes everyone in the official rate plus “marginally attached workers” — those who are not working and are not looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently.

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