Health care and social assistance drive US job growth, report shows

The September jobs report was released yesterday, outperforming market expectations by adding +119k jobs month-over-month. Health care and social assistance continue to drive growth numbers, adding +57k and nearly 50% of monthly gains. If we pull back the data over the past year, health care and social assistance is responsible for an increasingly larger share of the growth. Since September of last year, 61% of jobs came from health care and social assistance. If we just look at year-to-date, that percentage climbs to 83%. And in the past six months, the industry has added 108% of nonfarm payroll jobs. To put that number in perspective, health care and social assistance added +378k jobs from March to September of this year while the remaining industries combined to contribute a loss of -27k. Huntington Commercial Bank, Ian Wyatt, Thomas Moses Montgomery