IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
The U.S. unemployment picture was a mixed bag during August.
First, the good news: the national unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent last month, according to data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Now, the not-so-good news: the economy added 173,000 jobs during that time, a solid number but well below the average monthly job gains – 212,000 – recorded so far this year.
U.S. employers were expected to hire between 212,000 to 217,000 people last month, and the unemployment rate was expected to drop to 5.2 percent, according to several published forecasts.
That the jobless rate fell even though the job creation numbers were lower than expected probably means some people gave up looking for work last month, said Jay Prag, clinical professor of economics and finance at Claremont Graduate University.
“This is definitely one of those good news-bad news reports, because the number of jobs added was lower than expected,” Prag said. “You need to add about 225,000 jobs every month to keep pace with population growth, and we didn’t come close to that.”
The stock market’s weak performance today – the Dow dropped more than 300 points – can be blamed in part on the jobs numbers, Prag said.
“We’re coming up on Christmas, which is no time to be having a mediocre jobs report,” Prag said. “Wall Street is wondering if people are going to have enough money to spend during the holidays. The good news is the Federal Reserve might delay raising interest rates.”
The number of people working part-time was essentially unchanged in August, at 6.5 million. Those are people who want to work full-time but who are working part-time because their hours have been cut back or they can’t find full-time work, the bureau stated.
