Missouri payrolls fall 10,600 in September, led by services

Missouri payroll employment fell by 10,600 jobs in September from revised August levels, with private service-providing industries accounting for the largest decline. Payrolls remained 28,400 higher than in September 2025, according to the state’s September employment report.

Seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll employment totaled 3,007,300. The report was published Oct. 15 by the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

Service industries drove the monthly decline

Professional and business services lost 5,200 jobs, private education and health services lost 4,200, and trade, transportation and utilities declined by 2,600. Financial activities shed 1,400 jobs. Those were the largest listed industry declines in the monthly comparison.

The year-over-year figures show a different pattern. Leisure and hospitality added 13,900 jobs from September 2025, mining, logging and construction gained 8,800, and private education and health services added 6,800. Those gains contributed to the overall annual increase despite September’s drop from August.

Some sectors were lower than a year earlier: financial activities fell by 900 jobs and government employment declined by 2,800. Within government, federal employment was down 4,100 jobs, while local government was up 1,400.

Unemployment rates moved in opposite directions

Missouri’s smoothed, seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 3.6% in September from a revised 3.5% in August. It was 3.9% in September 2025. The September rate was below the U.S. rate of 4.2%; the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that national payroll employment increased by 29,000 that month.

The separate, not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate fell to 3.3% in September from 3.9% in August, and was below its 3.5% reading a year earlier. The state estimated 113,644 unemployed Missourians, 1,229 more than the revised August estimate of 112,415. These unemployment rates use different adjustments, so their opposite monthly movements are not conflicting readings of the same measure.

The report put Missouri’s labor-force participation rate at 63.3%, compared with 61.8% nationally. Its employment-population ratio was 61.1%, compared with 59.2% for the United States.

The August payroll estimate was revised upward by 2,200 jobs from its preliminary figure. The state says employment estimates can be revised, so the reported totals are estimates rather than final counts. A payroll decline measures estimated jobs, not an equal number of people losing work or becoming unemployed; payroll and household-survey measures track employment differently.

Missouri’s published release schedule lists Oct. 23 for September substate labor-force data and seasonally adjusted metropolitan-area data. The schedule also lists county-level labor-force information for that date.