The Economy Added 201,000 Jobs in August

Today’s jobs report showed that the U.S. economy created 201,000 net new jobs last month. That’s pretty much inline with the current trend.

The unemployment rate was 3.9%. Looking at the decimals, the unemployment rate came very close to rounding down to 3.8%. The current unemployment rate is lower than every single month in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

In the last 102 months, the U.S. economy has created 9.5 million new jobs. In the last year, average hourly earnings are up 2.9%.

A broad measure of unemployment and underemployment that includes Americans stuck in part-time jobs or too discouraged to look for work fell to 7.4% from 7.5% the prior month.

Friday’s report showed job gains in the professional and business services sector, along with health care, wholesale trade and transportation. Employment fell in the manufacturing industry, and all levels of government subtracted 3,000 jobs from payrolls last month.

The average workweek was unchanged at 34.5 hours in August.

Posted by on September 7th, 2018 at 11:57 am


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