I pulled the All Employees, Total Nonfarm payrolls series from FRED (the economic database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) and verified the Employment Situation news release, which showed nonfarm payrolls (the national count of paid workers) grew by 29,000 in September 2026. Panic merchants profit when job seekers fear a collapse, but the establishment survey, a monthly employer count, provides a photograph of payrolls showing hiring merely cooled.
Key takeaways
- The latest green bar added 29,000 jobs to reach 159,044,000, slowing from August's +133,000 and stretching interview timelines.
- Across 24 months, 17 green bars show gains while 7 red bars show losses, confirming overall job expansion still dominates.
- Red bars rose from 3 in the first 12 months to 4 in the second, showing job openings have tightened.
- Monthly changes swung between +237,000 in December 2024 and -156,000 in February 2026, framing September's +29,000 as a mild holding pattern.
What the terms mean
- The establishment survey: a monthly government census sample that counts jobs on business payrolls.
- Nonfarm payrolls: total paid U.S. workers recorded in the U.S. Economy at a Glance summary.
- FRED: Federal Reserve Economic Data, the public database maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
What to watch next
If the next print is another small loss, the story is a stall, not a drama.