WASHINGTON, DC-It was a major talking point during the recent presidential debate--that unemployment has languished above 8% for months. Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney will have to adjust that sound bite--though not dramatically--in the wake of the latest monthly jobs report issued by the the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While September's jobs tally was still relatively anemic--the economy added 114,000 jobs this past month--it did move the needle enough (0.3 percentage points) to crack the 8% mark and rest at 7.8%. The main sectors to see growth were health care, transportation and warehousing. There was little movement in most other major industries.

The 114,000 jobs added in September are better than August’s 96,000 jobs—but only barely. This year has been a disappointment, with employment growth averaging about 146,000 jobs per month, compared with an average monthly gain of 153,000 in 2011.

For the commercial real estate industry, the slow pace of growth in office-based jobs has been particularly difficult. Recent figures from Reis show that office space occupancy grew at a sluggish pace in the third quarter—rising by about 5.4 million square feet for a growth rate of 0.16%. The vacancy rate for office was 17.1% for the quarter, it said, down from 17.2%.

There is little in September’s employment numbers to expect that will change significantly in the near future. Most of the jobs created were in health care, which added 44,000 positions, and transportation and warehousing, which added 17,000. Employment in financial activities did edge up for the month, however, to add 13,000 positions. This reflected, the Labor Department said, “modest job growth in credit intermediation (+6,000) and real estate (+7,000).”

Another (slight) sign of good news for the industry is the growth of construction jobs: 5,000 jobs were added September while the industry's unemployment rate hit 11.9%, according to an analysis of the data by the Associated General Contractors of America.

"Despite the slight uptick in construction employment for the past month, the industry is a bit smaller than it was one year ago," says Stephen E. Sandherr, the association's chief executive officer, in a prepared statement. "It appears that for every rebounding market segment, there is another one that is shrinking."