US unemployment rate falls to 7.2%

The U.S. economy added 148,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment edged down to 7.2 percent, 0.1 percentage point lower than the previous month, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. The private sector added 126,000 jobs, and the payroll in governments of different levels rose by 22,000, the monthly jobs report showed. The total number of unemployed in the country was largely unchanged at 11.3 million in September. The number of long-term unemployed, who have been jobless for at least 27 weeks, ticked down to 4.1 million last month from 4.3 million in August. The change in newly added jobs for July was revised from 104,000 to 89,000, and the change for August was revised from 169,000 to 193,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 9,000 more than previously reported. Professional and business services, retail trade, construction, transportation and warehousing were among the sectors that announced big gains in job creation last month. Employment also trended up in manufacturing and mining. But employment in finance, leisure and hospitality trended down in September. The release of the September jobs report has been postponed for about two weeks because of the 16-day government shutdown starting on Oct. 1. The tepid jobs report will likely delay the Federal Reserve's plan to taper off its massive bond-buying program, the so-called QE3.