US unemployment rate falls to 7.9% in last look at jobs market before elections

Jobless rates have fallen sharply since hitting a record low in April, but the rate is still far higher than the 4.8% when Trump took office

The US unemployment rate fell to 7.9% in September, the labor department announced on Friday, in the last snapshot of the jobs market ahead of the presidential election.

Unemployment has fallen sharply since hitting a historic record of 14.7% in April after the coronavirus pandemic shut down the US. But the rate is still far higher than the 4.8% when Trump took office in January 2017 and the recent pace of recovery is slowing. The current level marks the worst job loss that any president has faced going into an election based on records going back to the second world war.