Employment in temporary help services continued an upward trend in September. The U.S. added 20,200 temporary help services job in September on a seasonally adjusted basis for a total of 2.75 million jobs, according to data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of temporary help services jobs rose by 9.0 percent, or 227,900 jobs, from September 2012.

The temporary penetration rate was 2.02 percent in September compared with 2.00 in August. The temporary penetration rate measures temp employment as a percentage of total U.S. jobs.

Total nonfarm employment rose by 148,000 to approximately 136.29 million. The U.S. unemployment rate edged down only slightly to 7.2 percent in September from 7.3 percent in August, but has declined by 0.4 percentage point since June.

College-level unemployment edged up to 3.7 percent in September from 3.5 percent in August. College-level unemployment can serve as a proxy for professional employment.

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