August NFP +156k, Unemployment 4.4%

The August jobs report is out. The U.S. economy created 156,000 net new jobs last month, although there were downward revisions to June and July. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%. Average hourly earnings rose just three cents to $26.39. That’s up 2.5% in the last year.

“Growth was slower in August, but that’s because there were fewer gains in growing industries, not because we’re seeing more losses in shrinking industries,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist at Indeed.com. “We’re actually at a point of unusual stability.”

The report does not include any impact from Hurricane Harvey and the devastation it unleashed in Texas, as the collection of the data used for the report was completed before the storm struck.

Employees also worked a bit less in August, with the average workweek falling .3 percent to 34.4 hours.

I think we can forget about the Fed raising rates again this year — and probably not for the first half of next year.

Posted by on September 1st, 2017 at 10:37 am


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