Washington - Unemployment in the United States remained steady at a rate of 6.1 per cent in September, unchanged from the month before, with some 9.5 million people out of work, the US Labor Department reported Friday.

But the department noted that non-farm payrolls had shed 159,000 jobs, with employment continuing to fall in construction, manufacturing and retail trade.

In August, unemployment had risen by 0.4 percentage points.

The Labor Department report noted that over the past 12 months, US unemployment had increased by 2.2 million, boosting the joblessness rate by 1.4 percentage points over that period.

In the category of long-term unemployed - people out of work for at least 27 weeks - the numbers in September rose by 167,000 to two million. This was a rise of 728,000 over September 2007 levels. (dpa)