Washington: The US jobless rate crept up in September even as hiring exceeded analyst expectations, according to a delayed employment report published Thursday after a record-long government shutdown.

The world's biggest economy added 119,000 jobs in the month -- up from August -- but the unemployment rate edged up from 4.3 percent to 4.4 percent, said the Labor Department.

The last such report was released in early September, making Thursday's publication the first official snapshot of the overall labor market's health in over two months.

But this also means that the data is backward-looking, at a time when the key jobs market has been weakening amid federal job losses and wave after wave of tariffs.

Nonetheless, the report will have implications for the Federal Reserve, where policymakers are deciding whether to make a third consecutive interest rate cut this year at their next policy meeting in December.

A weakening jobs market could nudge the Fed towards further rate cuts to boost the economy, but officials are also trying to keep inflation in check.

On Thursday, the Labor Department report also showed that the employment situation was gloomier than originally estimated in August, with the economy losing 4,000 jobs instead of logging gains.

MENAFN20112025000063011010ID1110374220