US Unemployment Rate 2012: Department of Labor Confirms Fall in Unemployment to 7.8 Percent in September

According to a report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate fell slightly to 7.8 percent in September. The results from the Labor Department coincide to the results released by Gallup on Thursday that reported the unemployment rate to be 7.9 percent.

The Labor Department revealed that 114,000 jobs were added in September and that health care and transportation and warehousing saw the biggest employment increases. According to the report, the number of unemployed fell by 456,000.The rate decline, down by 0.3 percent from August, is the lowest rate recorded in the past eight months.

Men, women and whites experienced the biggest declines in unemployment rates with men at 7.3 percent, women at 7.0 percent and whites at 7.0. The report revealed that unemployment rates for teenagers, blacks and Hispanics experience little change in September and that the unemployment rate for Asians has steadily declined over the past year.

After three months of minor change, total employment increased by 873,000 in September, the report said. The number of workers employed part time also increased in September from 8.0 million in August to 8.6 million in September.

The September report revealed that 2.5 million people were "marginally attached to the labor force," meaning they were not in the labor force but wanted and were available to work. These marginally attached people had searched for jobs in the last 12 months but had not looked for jobs four weeks before the survey, and thus were not included as unemployed.

In 2012, the employment growth average a month has been 146,000, down from an average of 153,000 a month in 2011, the report revealed.

Health care, which added 44,000 jobs in September, saw the highest employment spike in September. According to the report, job gains rose in ambulatory health care services by 30,000 and hospitals by 8,000.

Transportation and warehousing also experienced a spike in employment, with job gains in transit and ground passenger transportation (9,000) and in warehousing and storage (4,000). Financial jobs saw a modest employment increase, with job gains in credit intermediation (6,000) and real estate (7,000).

Manufacturing experienced a decrease in employment during September (-16,000), the labor report revealed.  Other major industries experienced little change, both positive or negative, in September.

The report released by the Department of Labor is consistent, within a tenth of a point, to the results released by Gallup on Thursday. The recent decline in unemployment could prove useful to President Barack Obama during his re-election campaign. Obama has been seen as the least favorable to fix the economy in past polls and is coming off a weak performance during the first presidential debate against GOP candidate Mitt Romney.