the unemployment rate is 7.8%…

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“The jobless rate in the U.S. probably rose in September as employers limited hiring, keeping the labor market’s lack of progress at the center of Federal Reserve deliberations and the presidential election.

Unemployment increased to 8.2 percent last month from 8.1 percent in August, according to themedian projection of 88 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Payrolls climbed by 115,000 workers, less than the 139,000 average over the first eight months of the year, the report may also show

“We’re running in place,” said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics research at Bank of America Corp. in New York. “A gain of around 100,000 or so jobs is just enough to absorb the population of new workers.” ”

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Fascinating (and perhaps too clever) note from Citi’s FXguru Steven Englander commenting on tomorrow’s big Non-Farm Payrolls report. He has a very surprising argument for what would be the best outcome for markets

“NEW YORK (Reuters) – The number of planned layoffs at U.S. firms in September rose 4.9 percent after hitting a 20-month low in August, a report on Thursday showed.

Employers announced planned job cuts of 33,816 last month, up from 32,239 in August, according to the report from consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

Despite this relative increase, the latest data marks a 15-year low in planned job cuts announced for the month of September.

Last month’s planned cuts were 71 percent lower than they were this time last year, when 115,730 expected job cuts were announced. Employers have announced 386,001 j o b cuts so far in 2012, down 19 percent from the 479,064 jobs cut during the first nine months of 2011.

“Layoffs are definitely at pre-recession levels. Unfortunately, hiring has not returned to those levels. A combination of factors, including the upcoming election, ongoing instability in Europe, growing signs of weakness in Asia and a host of other issues, are keeping companies from making any major expansion or hiring moves,” John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in a statement.”

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4 week moving average is unch at 375k

ADP’s results was better than expected….

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“(Reuters) – Toys R Us Inc said it will hire 45,000 seasonal employees across the United States to cope with the upcoming holiday season.

Toys R Us, which hired about 40,000 seasonal workers last year, said it retained about 15 percent of the holiday workforce after the season ended.”

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Way to go! Thanx for helping out the nation!

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“MoneyWatch) America is facing an unemployment problem far more complex than what emerges in government jobless statistics. Changes in who the unemployed are and what has happened to them in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis could mean a starkly different economy even after jobs have returned.

Going just by the numbers. it might appear things are getting better, or at least not getting much worse. The unemployment rate dropped in August to 8.1 percent, from 8.3 percent. Yet the main reason for that decline was that many job-seekers gave up looking for work. A more accurate picture is visible in the four-week average of the number of people applying for unemployment benefits. The Labor Department said today that nearly 378,000 Americans applied for jobless aid last week, the highest level in nearly three months and the fifth-straight week that figure has increased. ”

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A study released by the Boston Consulting Group estimates that an export surge in the U.S. could create 5 million jobs.

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” Nomura is making wide-ranging cuts in its European investment banking division on Thursday, according to sources, with up to 30 percent of jobs likely to go.”

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“The Federal Reserve, frustrated by persistently high U.S. unemployment and the torpid recovery, launched an aggressive program to spur the economy through open-ended commitments to buy mortgage-backed securities and a promise to keep interest rates low for years.

In the most significant of its new moves, the Fed said Thursday it would buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities every month and would keep buying them until the job market improves, an unusually strong commitment by the central bank.

“We want to see more jobs,” Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said at a news conference Thursday, explaining the rationale for the Fed’s actions. “We want to see lower unemployment. We want to see a stronger economy that can cause the improvement to be sustained.”

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” The number of planned layoffs at U.S. companies dropped for a third straight month in August and hit a 20-month low, a report showed on Thursday.

Employers announced 32,239 planned job cuts last month, down 12.5 percent from 36,855 in July, according to the report from consultantsChallenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.”

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Jobless claims fell 11% to 365k. It used to be above 35ok was good. Now anything below 400k is good. Compared to this time last year we had roughly 411k.

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The ADP private sector payroll number came in at 201k vs expectations of 140k…

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” Eric Cantor the House Majority Leader, stirred up quite the controversy on Labor Day when hetweeted:

“Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.”

Of course, Labor Day is a celebration of the worker class, not the capitalist class.  But his comments sparked a debate in some circles that has long been raging – this so-called debate about the “job creators” and who really drives job creation in the economy.  Unfortunately, the debate often falls on ideological lines as opposed to practical lines.  But this is the world we live in.  Everything is viewed in black and white when reality is usually somewhere in the middle.  This case is no different.  I’ll explain briefly.

Late last year I explained the role of the entrepreneur in the capitalist economy. In short, the entrepreneur seeks to provide superior goods and services that ultimately offer consumers a more efficient means of achieving some end.  This creates efficiencies which result in greater future consumption, economic expansion and more jobs in the future.  The example I’ve used in the past is Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.  When Bell invented the phone he destroyed thousands of jobs.  Messengers and telegram services were slowly defunct.  But Bell created efficiencies through making communication more convenient.  And in doing so he helped generate higher economic growth and ultimately more jobs in the future by streamlining what was once an arduous process – long distance communication.  Bell created countless jobs by creating this efficiency.  In this regard, capitalists, producers and innovators can be seen “job creators”.

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What follows is a timeline of how the two numbers in the monthly jobs report — with July’s report coming Friday morning — get gathered and then disseminated in the administration. It’s based on close to a dozen conversations with current and former administration officials.

Read the rest here.

“German unemployment increased for a fifth straight month in August as the European debt crisis curbed demand for exports and companies held back investment.

The number of people without a job increased a seasonally adjusted 9,000 to 2.90 million, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said today. Economists forecast a gain of 7,000, the median of 31 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey shows. The adjusted jobless rate was unchanged at 6.8 percent.”

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