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 Friday morning and here are the main metrics compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Change in non-farm payrolls: plus-235,000 versus plus-733,000 expected and a revised plus-1.05 million in July
- Unemployment rate, August: 5.2 percent versus 5.2 percent expected and 5.4 percent in July
- Average hourly earnings, month-over-month: 0.6 percent versus 0.3 percent expected and 0.4 percent in July
- Average hourly earnings, year-over-year: 4.3 percent versus 3.9 percent expected and 4.0 percent 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 percent, while holding above the 50-year low of 3.5 percent from early 2020.
Click here to read the full report from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.