The U.S. economy added 336,000 jobs in September, highlighting concern that the labor market isn’t cooling as fast as the Federal Reserve would like in its battle against inflation.
The nonfarm payroll additions were nearly double the 170,000 economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected. Revisions to the August and July jobs reports released Friday showed there were 119,000 more jobs created during those months than previously reported, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In September, the unemployment rate remained flat at 3.8%, unchanged from August, and at a level not seen since February 2022.
“Today’s report was unequivocally strong,” wrote Ellen Zentner, Morgan Stanley chief U.S. economist, in a research note on Friday. “Too strong for policymakers to relax their tightening bias. Inflation has been decelerating faster than Fed forecasts, but continued strength in job gains will fuel doubts that the pace of deceleration in inflation will be sustained.”
Wages, a closely watched indicator of how much leverage workers have, rose less than expected last month, rising 0.2% on a monthly basis and 4.2% over last year. Economists expected wages to rise 0.3% over last month and 4.3% over last year.
The labor force participation rate increase remained unchanged at 62.8%, the highest level since February 2020. Average weekly hours also remained flat at 34.4%.
Click here to read the full report from Josh Schafer at Yahoo Finance.