Unemployment Drops to 7.2%

The September jobs report is out today, delayed thanks to the government shutdown, and it reveals that the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.2% last month, while 148,000 jobs were added. Economists had expected the rate to hold steady at 7.3%, the Wall Street Journal notes, but they also expected more new jobs: 180,000, to be exact. The unemployment rate is a 5-year low, and Michael J. Casey at the Journal says it "seems genuine," rather than a result of people dropping out of the labor force.

August's number was revised upward, from 169,000 new jobs to 193,000. But July's was revised downward, from 104,000 new jobs to 89,000—the fewest in more than a year. If you're looking for any effects the shutdown may have had on the economy, you'll likely have to wait for the October report, the Journal notes. And that one will also be delayed, by one week; it arrives on Nov. 8. But the AP notes that the number of jobs created in September suggests the market was already weakening in advance of the shutdown. (More jobs report stories.)