The August jobs numbers fell short of economists' expectations
The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers added 130,000 jobs in August, falling short of the 150,000 to 170,000 new jobs economists predicted, MarketWatch reports. August gains often miss forecasts because many vacationing employers don't return surveys on time. July's gain was revised to 159,000 from 164,000, and June's was reduced to 178,000 from 193,000.
The unemployment rate remained near a 50-year low at 3.7 percent. Average wages rose by 0.4 percent to $28.11 per hour, with 12-month wage gains slipping to 3.2 percent from 3.3 percent. The softening of the labor market in August was expected to keep the pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to give the economy a boost.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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