Was this a good jobs report? Not so fast.

The government finally released the September jobs report on Thursday, which was long-delayed by the government shutdown that Americans blame President Donald Trump and the Republican Party for.

And while the top-line number exceeded economists' expectations—with the Bureau of Labor Statistics saying the economy added 119,000 jobs that month—a look under the hood has troubling signs for American workers.

Despite the number of jobs added, the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%. That’s the highest number since 2021, when the economy was still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A total of 7.6 million people were unemployed in September, a major increase from the same time a year prior when 6.9 million people were jobless.

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What's more, BLS revised the already abysmal August jobs report down, saying that the economy actually lost jobs that month. That marks the second time this year that the monthly report was negative—something that hadn’t happened since the COVID-19 pandemic and before that since 2010, when the economy was still recovering from the 2008 recession.

In all, even with September's job creation, the number of jobs created since April—when Trump announced his moronic Liberation Day tariffs—has been basically flat.

"Total nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 119,000 in September but has shown little change since April," BLS said in its report.

In fact, BLS also released its weekly jobless claims report on Thursday, which found continuing jobless claims rising to their highest number since 2021.

“Continuing US jobless claims rose to the highest since 2021 in today's claims report, implying that people who don't have jobs are having a harder time finding new ones,” Bloomberg reporter Lisa Abramowicz wrote in a post on X.

Because of the shutdown, BLS said it will not be releasing an October jobs report.

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It's unclear what the October report would have said, but reading the tea leaves it likely would not have been great, as multiple major companies have announced tens of thousands of layoffs. In fact, Verizon on Thursday plans to lay off 13,000 employees, the Wall Street Journal reported, in what amounts to the largest layoffs the company has ever conducted.

Indeed, a report from earlier in November found that layoffs are at their highest level since the Great Recession.

"Here's what worries the Fed (and me!): The unemployment rate is slowly drifting up," economist Justin Wolfers wrote. "This is a clear sign of an unhealthy economy. And it's happening slowly enough that it hasn't attracted many headlines. But it really matters."

It's no wonder why Trump's approval on the economy is so low.

A Fox News poll released Wednesday found that a whopping 76% of voters are unhappy with the economy. And the poll found that voters blame Trump—not former President Joe Biden, whom Trump has tried to scapegoat for the abysmal economic data—for that unhappiness.

Ultimately, Trump’s lies that the economy is doing great and that prices are falling are not landing with voters. As the saying goes, “Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining.”

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