Delayed September Jobs Report Expected to Show Continued Weak Growth

Key Takeaways

• Economists forecast the September 2025 employment report will show 50,000 new jobs were added while the unemployment rate stayed steady at 4.3%.
• Job growth has slowed significantly since the start of the year.
• Despite the expected weak pace of hiring, odds of a Federal Reserve interest rate cut in December have declined to less than 50%.

Economists predict that the September jobs report, scheduled to be released Thursday, will show a continued soft job market, with only a slight uptick in hiring after a weak reading in August.

Nonfarm payrolls are predicted to have expanded by 50,000 in September, up from 22,000 in August, according to consensus estimates from FactSet. By contrast, the US economy was adding roughly 100,000 jobs per month at the start of the year.

“It will be further confirmation that the labor market trend we saw during the summer, which was pretty weak, continued into the fall,” says Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide. He forecasts the employment report will show the economy added 40,000-50,000 jobs in September. “I would call the job market stagnant, and I think there’s still a lot of credence to the idea that firms are maintaining a no-hire, no-fire mentality,” he says.

The September report was delayed by the longest government shutdown in US history. Originally due Oct. 3, it’s now set to be released on Nov. 20. The status of the October jobs report has not been officially announced, although White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said payroll data will be released at some point.

“Financial markets will probably react to the September jobs report less than they usually would, since there’s much more information about how the job market did already available from private sources,” says Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “However, the government data is still the gold standard for measuring the state of the job market, and a big surprise in either direction would deliver a lot of new information.” Adams forecasts an increase of about 40,000 in nonfarm payroll employment for September.

September Jobs Report Forecast Highlights

• Job report release date and time: Thursday, Nov. 20, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time
• Nonfarm payroll employment is forecast to increase by 50,000, versus the 22,000 rise in August, according to FactSet.
• The unemployment rate is forecast to stay steady at 4.3%.

Areas of Strength in the Job Market

Healthcare was likely a bright spot in the job market in September, according to Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. He forecasts an overall increase of 50,000 jobs for September. “Healthcare has been the key structural support to employment growth,” Daco says. “In fact, over the past six months, most of the job gains have been in the healthcare sector.” For example, in August, the healthcare and social assistance industry added 46,800 jobs, compared with the net figure of 22,000 for that month across all industries.

Daco also believes leisure and hospitality saw gains in September, but that might not continue: “You’re still seeing some hiring that started in the summer when more affluent consumers were still spending. We expect to see weaker trends in the fall and into the winter, given the slowdown we’ve seen at the aggregate level for consumer spending.”

According to Nationwide’s Ayers, education was also likely a strong point in September, at least in the private sector. He says funding cuts and volatility in state and local government budgets mean public sector hiring could be weaker.

Likely Area of Weakness: Manufacturing

According to Ayers, manufacturing will continue to be weak, with the sector having shed 12,000 jobs in August, 2,000 in July, and 17,000 in June. He says a post-pandemic shift in consumer demand away from goods toward services, combined with trade policy uncertainty, have impaired hiring. “Manufacturing has been in a modest recession for a couple of years,” he says.

Fed Cut Likely, but Markets Are Less Certain

For Fed officials struggling to assess where to take interest rates, this is the first set of government data to consider since the government shutdown began. Fed Chair Jerome Powell likened setting monetary policy without official data to driving in the fog.

Over the past month, expectations for a December rate cut have shifted dramatically. At the start of the shutdown, the bond futures market had seen a December rate cut as a near certainty, according to the CME FedWatch tool. Those odds now stand at 43%.

“I used to think the Fed would cut again in December, but given the recent Fed-speak and the fact that there are a number of diverging factions within the Federal Open Markets Committee, I now anticipate that the Fed will not cut rates in December,” says EY-Parthenon’s Daco. However, he thinks additional indications of job market weakness could lead to a rate cut in January.

Nationwide’s Ayers is more confident in a cut: “The Fed has enough other indicators and factors that show that the labor market is weakening. We think there’s enough softening there to cut.”