The nation showed a slight gain in jobs last month -- causing Wall Street to hope the unemployment problem has turned a corner -- but the increase was too slight to reduce the unemployment rate.
The Labor Department said the country added 57,000 jobs in September, the first increase in eight months. In another encouraging sign, the Labor Department reduced its initial estimate of August jobs losses by over half, dropping it to 41,000 from 93,000 originally.
But in a labor market surpassing 130 million people, September's hiring wasn't enough to move the unemployment rate from 6.1 percent. Furthermore, most experts said it is too early to say if the economy is truly poised for a bout of significant job creation.
Still, most experts were in a mood to see the employment glass as half-full.
''It's only one month's data, two if you count the upward revision to last month's numbers,'' said Bill Cheney, chief economist for the John Hancock financial organization in Boston. ``But after seven consecutive months of bad news, this month's positive job growth may signal that we've bottomed out at last and now are on the way back up.''
Wall Street seemed to concur. In early afternoon trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 150 points, or 1.6 percent, trading in the range of 9,640.
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