In September, payrolls were reported to have declined 33,000, but that weakness reflected the effects of Hurricane Irma, which hit Florida during the reference week for the September labor market surveys. I would expect employment to bounce back in subsequent months as communities recover and people return to their jobs. Other aspects of the jobs report for September were strong.
The unemployment rate, which seems not to have been noticeably affected by the hurricanes, declined further to 4.2 percent, down about 1/2 percentage point from the end of 2016 and below the median of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) participants’ estimates of its longer-run normal level.