Unemployment up in September 2005

Both the number of unemployed persons, 7.7 million, and the unemployment rate, 5.1 percent, rose in September. They had been trending down in recent months and remain lower than a year earlier.

[Chart data—TXT]

The unemployment rates for most major worker groups—adult men (4.5 percent), adult women (4.6 percent), whites (4.5 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (6.5 percent)—rose in September. The jobless rate for teenagers (15.8 percent) and blacks (9.4 percent) showed little change.

In September, the number of persons unemployed due to job loss rose by 234,000 to 3.7 million. The number of newly unemployed—those who were unemployed less than 5 weeks—grew by 193,000 to 2.7 million. Both of these numbers had been trending down in recent months.

These data are from the Current Population Survey and are seasonally adjusted. For more information, see "The Employment Situation: September 2005" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 05-1946.

Note: Data for September 2005 are the first to reflect the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Rita made landfall during the September data collection period. As a result, response rates were lower than normal in some areas. However, because the survey reference period occurred before Hurricane Rita struck, the impact of this storm on measures of unemployment was negligible.