(NewsNation) — Anyone expecting clarity from Thursday’s long-awaited jobs report came away empty-handed.

U.S. employers added a surprising 119,000 jobs in September, new Labor Department data shows — more than double the 50,000 economists had forecast. But optimism was tempered by downward revisions to the previous two months, suggesting the summer’s job market was even weaker than previously thought.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to 4.4%, its highest level since October 2021 and above the 4.3% economists expected.

Bankrate analyst Sarah Foster called the report a “pick your poison dataset,” likely to fuel, not settle, debate among Federal Reserve policymakers.

Part of the challenge is that the September figures may already be out of date. The 43-day government shutdown halted data releases, and Thursday’s report reflects conditions nearly two months old.

Here’s what the September numbers reveal about the labor market heading into the shutdown.

1 — Summer job market was worse than previously thought

Thursday’s revisions showed that an already-weak summer was even softer than thought.

Instead of gaining 22,000 jobs in August, department revisions showed the economy actually lost 4,000 jobs. That marks the second month of negative payroll growth this year — something that hasn’t happened, outside of the COVID pandemic, since 2010.

July’s gains were revised down as well, from 79,000 to 72,000, a sharp slowdown from a year earlier when employers added 144,000 jobs in the same month.

Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, called the August revision “worrying” in a post on X but said the overall report still reflects a “relatively healthy labor market” with “moderate” job growth over the past three months.

Still, the unemployment rate has now risen for three straight months, from 4.1% in June to 4.4% in September.

“This is a clear sign of an unhealthy economy,” Wolfers wrote. “And it’s happening slowly enough that it hasn’t attracted many headlines.”

2 — Health care dominates, but other sectors show signs of life

The health care and social assistance sector has dominated job growth over the past year — and that remained true in September — but other industries also posted gains.

Leisure and hospitality added 47,000 jobs, driven by restaurants and bars. Construction added 19,000 jobs, and government payrolls rose by 22,000, lifted by state and local hiring.

Federal government employment declined by 3,000 in September — a number that will likely look different once the shutdown effects are reflected.

“We expect to see that government employment fell much more sharply in October, when workers who signed up for the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program will drop off payrolls,” Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, transportation and warehousing (25,300 lost), professional and business services (20,000 lost) and manufacturing (6,000 lost) all shed jobs in September.

Major industries that added jobs in September 2025 (preliminary data):

• Health care and social assistance: +57,100
• Leisure and hospitality: +47,000
• Government: +22,000
• Construction: +19,000
• Retail Trade: +13,900

Major industries that shed jobs in September 2025 (preliminary data):

• Transportation and warehousing: -25,300
• Professional and business services: -20,000
• Manufacturing: -6,000
• Mining and logging: -3,000
• Other services: -2,000

3 – Fed expected to hold rates steady in December

The Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in 2022 to curb inflation. But over the past two meetings, policymakers have reversed course and begun cutting — moves aimed at supporting a cooling labor market.

Those cuts were widely expected, but what comes next is less certain.

Markets currently see a 60% chance the Fed holds rates steady next month and a 40% chance of another quarter-point cut, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

A hold would suggest policymakers don’t see the recent jobs data as weak enough to warrant another cut — a mildly encouraging signal. But they remain alert on inflation: Consumer prices rose 3% in September from a year earlier, still above the Fed’s 2% target.

“My bottom line: I would not cut rates at the Dec meeting,” Harvard economist Jason Furman wrote on X Thursday.

Vanden Houten agreed: “There is nothing in the data to warrant a change to our forecast for the Federal Reserve to leave rates unchanged at the December meeting.”