Missouri non-farm payroll employment increased from August to September 2021, and the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate decreased by two-tenths of a percentage point.

A news release says seasonally-adjusted employment increased by 7,500 jobs over the month, with job gains in service-providing industries. The state’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 3.8 percent in September, down from 4.0 percent in August. Recovery from COVID-19-related layoffs continued with an increase of 70,800 jobs from September 2020 to September 2021.

With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic now more than a year in the past, the September 2021 rate was 1.6 percentage points lower than the September 2020 rate. The rate had reached a low of 3.1 percent starting in August 2018, before gradually edging up to 3.5 percent by the end of 2019, and then to 3.7 percent in March 2020. The COVID-19 effect hit in April 2020, spiking the rate to 12.5 percent for that month. The rate decreased monthly for the rest of 2020, reaching 4.4 percent in December, and continued gradually downward through the first four months of 2021. The increase of two-tenths of a percentage point from April to June 2021 appeared to be related to a temporary shortage in the supply of semiconductor chips, which caused production slowdowns in some manufacturing industries.

The state’s not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate also decreased in September 2021, dropping by 0.6 percentage points to 2.9 percent from the August 2021 not-seasonally-adjusted rate of 3.5 percent. The corresponding not-seasonally-adjusted national rate for September 2021 was 4.6 percent.

A year ago, the state’s seasonally-adjusted rate was 5.4 percent, and the not-adjusted rate was 4.8 percent.

You can read the full report at <https://meric.mo.gov/missouri-monthly-jobs-report>.