WASHINGTON – The nation’s unemployment rate was unchanged in September at 6.1 percent, even as non-farm employment plunged in its ninth consecutive month of declines, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

“Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 159,000 in September,” compared with the month before, BLS Commissioner Keith Hall told Congress today in an address before the Joint Economic Committee that accompanied the release of the monthly Employment Situation report. “By comparison, from January through August, payroll employment decreased by 75,000 a month on average.”

Analysts had expected a smaller loss – projecting that a 105,000-job decline would follow the originally estimated August loss of 84,000 jobs (READ MORE) – based on the median estimate from a Bloomberg News survey of 76 economists. But they correctly predicted the jobless rate would hold steady in September, after rising 0.4 percentage points the month before, at 1.4 percentage points above its level in September 2007.

“Job losses continued in manufacturing, construction and retail trade,” while “mining and health care employment continued to trend up,” Hall said, adding that “although Hurricane Ike struck the east coast of Texas and portions of coastal Louisiana during the September reference period for the establishment survey, we believe the storm did not substantially impact” the employment figures released today.

“Manufacturing job losses continued in September,” when the sector shed 51,000 jobs, Hall said. “In particular, motor vehicle and parts manufacturers shed 18,000 jobs.” Last month’s employment declines bring total U.S. manufacturing-job losses over the past year to 140,000, he added.

Manufacturing hours and overtime both fell last month, by 0.2 hour and 0.1 hour, respectively.

“Construction employment was down by 35,000 over the month,” Hall said. “Since its peak in September 2006, employment in this industry has fallen by 607,000. Eighty-five percent of the job losses over this 2-year period have occurred in residential building and residential specialty trades.”

The only major goods-producing industry to show gains in September was mining, which added 8,000 jobs. “Mining has added 241,000 jobs since April 2003, with most of the growth in oil and gas extraction and support activities,” Hall said.

Among service-providing industries, gains were seen in health care employment, he said. “However, the September increase of 17,000 was only about half the [30,000-job] average monthly gain for the prior 12 months.”

Meanwhile, Hall said, “retail employment fell by 40,000 over the month, with the largest job losses occurring among department stores and motor vehicle and parts dealers. Over the past 4 months, auto and parts dealerships have shed an average of 12,000 jobs per month.”

Financial services shed 17,000 jobs last month, when “securities and investment firms accounted for 8,000 of the loss,” Hall said. “The employment-services industry – which includes temporary-help agencies - continued to contract in September and has lost 303,000 jobs thus far this year.”

Analysts cited the credit crisis that last month saw the failure or government takeover of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and insurance giant American International Group Inc.

“If credit markets remain dysfunctional, the current recession could turn out to be as severe as any in the postwar period,” former Federal Reserve governor Lyle Gramley, now senior economic adviser at the Stanford Group Co. in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg News. “Voters are extremely angry, and they want someone to blame,” added Scott Anderson, senior economist at Wells Fargo & Co. in Minneapolis.

Nationwide last month, about 9.5 million people were unemployed and actively looking for work, a total that was “little-changed from August,” Hall said. “Two million of these individuals had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more, an increase of 167,000 over the month and 728,000 over the past 12 months.”

Likewise, “both the labor-force participation rate, at 66.0 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 62.0 percent, were little changed” from their August levels. “Labor force participation has shown virtually no movement over the past 12 months, while the employment-population ratio has declined by 0.9 percentage point,” Hall said.

“The number of persons working part time who would have preferred full-time employment increased by 337,000 in September, to nearly 6.1 million,” he added. “Over the last 12 months, the number of such workers has grown by 1.6 million.”

Average hourly earnings for production and non-supervisory workers rose to $18.17 – an increase of 0.2 percent compared with August’s $18.14 per hour and 3.4 percent compared with September 2007 – lagging the Bloomberg survey’s forecast. Meanwhile, Hall noted, “from August 2007 to August 2008, the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) rose by 5.9 percent,” erasing hourly workers’ earning gains.

“We interrupt the financial meltdown to remind you that the nation’s payrolls have been contracting for nine months in a row,” quipped Jared Bernstein, senior economist with the California-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in a statement this morning. “These numbers clearly portray a recessionary job market that has been taking a toll on working families’ living standards,” Bernstein added.

Additional information, including the full Employment Situation Summary and the BLS Commissioner’s Statement on the Employment Situation release, is available from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics at www.bls.gov.