Thanks to the government shutdown, the jobs report, due out October 4, only came out today. Next month’s will be late as well, coming out on November 8 instead of November 1.

The economy added 148,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell by a tick, to 7.2 percent. These numbers will, of course, be touted as good news by the administration, but it’s basically more of the same: slow job grow and an unemployment rate more affected by people dropping out of the work force than by growth. In the last year of “recovery” the unemployment rate has fallen only from 7.8 percent to 7.2 percent, while the participation rate (the percentage of adults in the workforce) declined from 63.6 to 63.2.

The number of jobs created in September was below expectations (economists were expecting about 185,000 jobs created) and way below the average for the last year (193,000). And the unemployment rate for teenagers (21.4 percent) and blacks (12.9) remain dismal. The unemployment rate for those 18-29, many of them just entering the workforce, is 15.9 percent, a tremendous headwind for somebody with a necessarily short résumé.

The broader measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and those working part time who want full-time jobs, is 13.6 percent.

Altogether, the numbers are depressing if not indicative of a depression.