Although the September unemployment rate declined to 7.9% from 8.4% in August, the net addition of 661,000 jobs - 877,000 gained in the private sector, offset by losses of public and private education jobs - marks a slowdown from the 1.5M jobs added in the previous month.

The Leisure and Hospitality sector added the most jobs: 318,000, including 200,000 at restaurants and bars, but employment in this vertical is still down 2.3M jobs from February.

Recreation (+69,000 jobs) and accommodation (+51,000 jobs) also added significant numbers of jobs in September.

142,000 retail jobs were added.

Average hourly earnings rose by $0.02 to $29.47, and the average workweek rose 0.1 hour to 34.1 hour.