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CARL AZUZ: Happy Monday to you.
I'm Carl Azuz.
We're getting off the ground with a new week of news.
And that ain't the only thing taking flight in today's show.
We'll explain in just a couple minutes.
First though, the US government has released
its monthly jobs report.
It's one measure of how the economy as a whole is doing.
The report that just came out is for the month of September,
and it was a disappointment.
Economists had expected that 479,000 jobs would
have been added last month.
The actual number was well below half that,
according to the US Labor Department.
It was the second month in a row that the number of jobs added
to the American economy was dramatically lower
than what economists predicted.
And no one knows exactly why the growth in this area
has slowed down.
Many economists point to continued concerns
about the coronavirus pandemic and the Delta variant
of the disease that was reportedly twice as contagious
as previous versions of it.
But while new COVID cases hit a high point
in late August and early September,
they have been steadily decreasing since then.
Critics of the government's stimulus program
say they were too generous, that they gave too much money
to people who weren't working.
States that opted out of those programs early
did see their employment grow faster, according to government
data, but the federal stimulus programs
ended in early September and still, many Americans
haven't returned to work.
Experts say other reasons for this
could include problems finding child care,
workers considering changing their careers,
and requirements that employees have a coronavirus vaccine,
which some don't want to get.
These could all be factors in why fewer jobs are being added.
The unemployment rate, the percentage of American workers
who don't have a job, that fell to 4.8% in September from 5.2%
the month before.
Those are the lowest unemployment
rates since March of last year, and usually,
that would be good news.
But economists say the unemployment
rate only counts the workers who are actively looking for jobs.
Many Americans are not, so they say
that picture may not be as pretty
as the number alone suggests.
Overall, US job growth in September
was the lowest it's been all year.
- President Joe Biden addressing a disappointing September jobs
report.
JOE BIDEN: Our recovery is moving forward even in the face
of a COVID pandemic.
- The Labor Department said US employers added
just 194,000 jobs last month.
MARK HAMRICK: The economy is still
very much dramatically being affected by the pandemic
in different ways.
- Public education jobs, local and state, fell during
the back-to-school month.
The leisure and hospitality industry
added just 74,000 jobs, still struggling
to recoup more than a million pandemic forced losses.
NELA RICHARDSON: People are less willing, I think,
to work in jobs requiring close public contact.
- The unemployment rate fell to 4.8%.
Despite millions of job openings,
the labor participation rate barely budged.
Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP,
says that is a key number to watch.
NELA RICHARDSON: Getting people back into the labor market,
whatever the bottlenecks or reasons are,
is going to be really important for a full recovery.
Not just in the unemployment rate,
but an inclusive recovery that really
reaches every vulnerable group.
- Mark Hamrik, Washington bureau chief for Bankrate,
says October may give a more accurate recovery snapshot.
MARK HAMRICK: We'll get well past the period
when the federal pandemic unemployment benefits were
expiring, and there may be some transitions
in people's lives there.
- Holiday seasonal hiring will also kick into high gear.
The US is still down 5 million jobs since the start
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Washington, I'm Karin Caifa.
CARL AZUZ: 10 second trivia.
Where would you find the Orkney Islands?
Northern Scotland, Western Ireland, West of Morocco,
or East of Argentina?
The Orkney Islands are located off the northern coast
of the Scottish mainland.
There are dozens of islands in the archipelago.
Encyclopedia Britannica says about 20 of them are inhabited,
and as it looks for new and cheaper ways to bring residents
their mail here, the UK's Royal Mail
service is testing out drones.
We're not talking about individual deliveries
to individual homes, we're talking
about an unmanned aerial vehicle, a small plane that
flies without a pilot to an airport
and one of the Orkney Islands, where
a human postal worker would then get its cargo
and deliver it to houses.
The UAV could eventually take the job away
from a human pilot, and some observers
say industrial drones are more likely to malfunction
than planes or mail trucks, so there are concerns
about reliability as well as what happens if a drone crashes
and causes property damage.
Here are some potential upsides.
CHRIS PAXTON: There are 70 people that live on that island
and the drone is large enough to carry all the mail
for that particular community.
The UAV is capable of flying in all weathers,
is less susceptible to tides and bad weather
than conventional forms of transport,
so we really see it as being a big quality of service benefit.
It's also a lot more environmentally friendly
than the conventional forms of transport.
They are burning a lot less fuel than a conventional craft
because all they've got to transport
is the weight of the vehicle and the weight of the cargo
that it carries.
There are no passengers.
There are no pilots to add extra weight,
so it burns a fraction of the fuel
that you would normally see conventional aircraft taking.
The Isles of Scilly is a distance
off the Cornish mainland.
It's too far for somebody to see with the naked eye.
So it was the first beyond visual line of sight trial.
It's the first time a parcel company
had done that in the UK.
It's a stepping stone to the North Ronaldsay trial,
which we've done, which is a stepping stone
to ultimately the business's ambition of serving
an entire community via drone.
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CARL AZUZ: Brittany Walters is one of the ladies nominated
to be homecoming queen at Forest County Agricultural
High School in Mississippi.
She didn't win the title, but thanks to a selfless
act by another student named Nyla Covington,
Brittany still took home the crown.
Here is an exceptional story of how
one student honored another as well as a mom who passed away.
BRITTANY WALTERS: All I could think about was my mom
and how she wanted to be here.
And then the next thing I know, Nyla walked towards me
and she hugged me.
And I just didn't think anything of it.
And then she started to take off her crown.
- Forest County Agricultural High
School's Homecoming 2021 will be a day many will never forget.
After being named homecoming queen,
senior Nyla Covington immediately decided to give
her crown to Brittany Walters.
NYLA COVINGTON: I told her it belonged to her.
And then she was, like, backing away, or whatever,
and I was like, no come here.
Get it.
You're your mom's queen.
I wanted her to know that.
Then I hugged her.
- Nyla's kind and selfless act comes after
Brittany lost her mother, A.J. Walters,
to cancer that Friday morning.
BRITTANY WALTERS: My mom would have done the same thing
if she was in Nyla's shoes.
And I just-- I felt my mom's presence there.
And I can see my mom through Nyla.
They have the same exact caring and giving spirit.
And it just-- It's really fulfilling.
- It was an emotional and difficult day
for Brittany and her family.
But her mother never wanted her to miss this special day.
SEAN WALTERS: She realized that she may not
be able to make it out here.
But she-- She made me promise her
that I was going to come out here with Brittany
because she didn't want to ruin her--
her day, her homecoming day.
She said that's something that she'll remember
for-- for the rest of her life.
- And thanks to Nyla, homecoming night
will always be remembered.
And so will AJ who was an administrative assistant
at the high school and was very involved
in her daughter's schools.
WILL WHEAT: Her spirit is what made her special.
Even on the hardest days, even battling cancer,
she always had a smile on her face.
NYLA COVINGTON: She's, like the person
that I want everybody to be like, honestly.
Because she just smiled.
SEAN WALTERS: She was a giving person.
She-- She tried to help everyone person
she come in contact with, encourage them,
compliment them.
BRITTANY WALTERS: I feel like this is her way of still
touching people, because that's what she
lived her whole life around, was trying
to help and touch people.
And this is her way of still doing it.
- Brittany's father, Shawn Walters,
and principal Will Wheat hope that A.J.'s kindness
and Nyla's beautiful gesture will encourage others
to also have a giving heart.
WILL WHEAT: We hope that Nyla's selfless act will be a light
for the rest of society.
So we're very proud of her and her giving nature.
SEAN WALTERS: Obviously, she has great parents
that's raised her-- raised her well, you know.
And that's-- it's hard to find sometimes,
nowadays, and that's it speaks a lot to them, too.
CARL AZUZ: So we certainly recognize Brittany, Nyla,
the Walters family, and everyone else in their community
of Brooklyn, Mississippi.
And before we leave you today, we'd
like to give a shout out to some of our viewers
in Newark, Delaware.
Thank you, Christiana High School,
for requesting a mention on our YouTube channel.
I'm Carl Azuz.
CNN 10 hopes to see you again tomorrow.