Temporary help jobs rose by 5,900 in September from August even as total nonfarm jobs fell, according to seasonally adjusted numbers released today by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Temp jobs also gained as a percent of total employment with the temp penetration rate reaching a high of 2.082% in September. The penetration rate in August was 2.078%.

However, total nonfarm jobs fell by 33,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis even as the unemployment rate fell to 4.2% in September from 4.4% in August.

Data suggest hurricanes Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida reduced the estimate of total nonfarm payroll employment for September, according to the Bureau of Statistics, but there was no discernible effect on the national unemployment rate.

“This month was a tale of two surveys, likely due to hurricanes,” said Tony Gregoire, director of research for the Americas at Staffing Industry Analysts.

“The total nonfarm employment drop of 33,000 comes from BLS’s Establishment Survey (which only includes employees paid during the survey period, which ended September 12, two days after Hurricane Irma made landfall),” Gregoire said. “The drop in the unemployment rate from 4.4% to 4.2% (made even more impressive by the rise in the labor force) is from BLS’s Household Survey, which includes employees not paid during the survey week under certain circumstances (one of them being ‘prevented from working by bad weather.’)”

The college-level unemployment rate — which can serve as a proxy for professional employment — edged down to 2.3% from 2.4% in August.

The Conference Board noted the job report does not tell much about the current trend in employment, given the impact of the hurricanes. But revisions to previous months, along with this month’s report, provide reason to slightly reduce expectations about the current trend in job growth, it reported.

Randstad Sourceright CEO Rebecca Henderson said that while the softer job growth reflects the devastation of the hurricanes, there has been a positive surge of contingent employment to support disaster recovery efforts.

“FEMA has already filled hundreds of temporary positions to help rebuild communities impacted in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands,” Henderson said in a statement. “Job openings for contingent talent have also spiked in the construction and hospitality sectors, and we expect to see similar demand from the engineering and environmental sectors in the coming weeks and months.”

Economist Gus Faucher told Bloomberg the underlying economy is in OK shape despite the drop in jobs.

“I don’t think this is indicative of problems in the labor market — it’s because of the hurricanes,” Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc. in Pittsburgh, told Bloomberg. Excluding effects of the storms, “the economy is in decent shape, the labor market continues to improve, and we’ll bounce back to job growth in the final three months of 2017.”

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