IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
The U.S. economy added 151,000 jobs in August, a respectable number but not enough to move the unemployment rate, which remained at 4.9 percent for the third month in a row.
An estimated 7.8 million people were unemployed last month, essentially unchanged from September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
Average hourly wages rose three cents, to $25.73.
Social services, food and beverage, professional and technical services and the financial sector all added jobs last month. Health care jobs also increased, but at a slower pace than in previous months, the bureau reported.
Even though the jobs report fell short of expectations – economists were expecting 180,000 new jobs and an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent – the U.S. economy has grown for 78 consecutive months.
Still, the trend of adding jobs but not reducing the unemployment rate is difficult to explain, Inland Empire economist John Husing said.
“It’s very hard to figure out,” Husing said. “It could be that some of the jobs that are opening up require technology skills that people don’t have. That’s something that never gets talked about. People only talk about the jobs that are going overseas.”
The bureau also revised its June and July job numbers: June was downgraded, from 292,000 to 271,000, while July went up, from 255,000 to 275,000.
