Posted on 09/03/21
| News Source: Yahoo Finance
The U.S. economy added back jobs at a far slower pace in August following an early-summer jump in employment, as an initial wave of reopening hiring waned and concerns over the Delta variant increased.
The Labor Department delivered its monthly jobs report at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday morning. Here were the main metrics from the report compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
Change in non-farm payrolls: +235,000 vs. +733,000 expected and +943,000 in July
Unemployment rate, August: 5.2% vs. 5.2% expected and 5.4% in July
Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: 0.6% vs. 0.3% expected and 0.4% in July
Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: 4.3% vs. 3.9% expected and 4.0% in July
Following back-to-back months of non-farm payroll gains of more than 900,000, employers added back the fewest jobs since January. Still, this marked an eighth consecutive month of net job growth, and brought total employment closer to pre-pandemic levels. The unemployment rate also dipped further to reach a pandemic-era low of 5.2%, while holding above the 50-year low of 3.5% from early 2020.