September's employment report, just out this morning, was a somewhat disappointing one, showing that the American economy added just 142,000 jobs on the month. The headline unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.1 percent.
After a year of averaging more than 200,000 new jobs added, the economy appears to have slowed a bit over the summer. The average over the past three months has been 167,000 new jobs. After an average of 260,000 new jobs added per month in 2014, September's figures bring the 2015 average down to 198,000.
The biggest culprit appears to be the oil & gas industry, a victim of falling oil prices. While most industries have added jobs to a greater or lesser extent over the past year, employment in oil & gas is down 3 percent since August 2014.
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