Economy adds lower-than-expected 136,000 jobs, unemployment rate drops

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published 4 October 2019

The Labor Department reported Friday that the U.S. economy added 136,000 new non-farm jobs in September, falling short of a 150,000 increase forecast by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The job growth was the slowest in four months as U.S. companies grew more hesitant to hire new workers as signs of possible economic trouble piled up. The hiring was still considered solid, with August and July gains revised up by a total of 45,000, although gains for the year through August averaged about 160,000 compared to 223,000 a month in 2018. The unemployment rate dropped to 3.5 percent, the lowest in 50 years.

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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.