by Calculated Risk on 10/03/2014 08:30:00 AM

From the BLS:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 248,000 in September, and the unemployment rate declined to 5.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from +212,000 to +243,000, and the change for August was revised from +142,000 to +180,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 69,000 more than previously reported.

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows the monthly change in payroll jobs, ex-Census (meaning the impact of the decennial Census temporary hires and layoffs is removed to show the underlying payroll changes).

Employment is now up 2.63 million year-over-year.

Total employment is now 1.07 million above the pre-recession peak.

The second graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.

The Labor Force Participation Rate decreased in September to 62.7% from 62.8% in August. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.   A large portion of the recent decline in the participation rate is due to demographics.

The Employment-Population ratio was unchanged at 59.0% (black line).

I'll post the 25 to 54 age group employment-population ratio graph later.

The third graph shows the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate decreased in September to 5.9%.

This was above expectations, and the revisions to prior months were strongly positive.  A solid report!

I'll have much more later ...