16 Sep Jobs Increase by 130,000 in August

Jobs Increase by 130,000 in August

In August, U.S. employers added 130,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate stayed unchanged for the third month in a row, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report. Read this blog post from SHRM to learn more.

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U.S. employers added 130,000 jobs in August, coming in below economists’ expectations, and the unemployment rate held at 3.7 percent for the third straight month, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report.

July’s employment total was revised down from 164,000 new jobs to 159,000. In the past three months, job gains averaged 156,000 a month after revisions.

“Today’s jobs report shows slowing private-sector job growth and slowing wage growth, which—while expected this late in the recovery—is somewhat disappointing after the rapid gains of the past two years,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at employment marketplace ZipRecruiter.

On Sept. 5, the ADP Research Institute and Moody’s Analytics reported private-sector growth of 195,000 new jobs, better than economists’ expectations of about 160,000 jobs.

“Despite the slower growth in jobs added, labor force participation did perk up, a sign that the healthy labor market is still drawing in workers from the sidelines,” said Glassdoor senior economist Daniel Zhao.

The labor force participation rate—which includes people who are working and those looking for work—ticked up to 63.2 percent, one of its highest readings in years. The proportion of the population currently employed is at 60.9 percent, its highest point since December 2008. And the employment-to-population ratio for workers aged 25-54 reached 80 percent for the first time since January 2008.

Zhao said that the increases signal that the tightness of the labor market is putting upward pressure on labor force participation despite an aging population pulling it down.

Michael Stull, senior vice president at the staffing and recruiting firm Manpower North America, said other positive takeaways from the report are better than expected wage growth and strong hiring in the professional and business, financial and health care sectors.

Job gains in August were led by professional and business services (37,000 new jobs), which includes many technology jobs and the nation’s booming health care industry (23,900). Other industries showing gains include finance (15,000) and construction (14,000).

“Health care and professional services have both grown strongly across 2019, carrying the labor market despite weakness in the goods-producing sectors,” Zhao said. “Additionally, the increase in temporary help services [15,400 jobs] is a good sign that employers are not cutting back on the most flexible parts of their workforces in the face of recession chatter.”

However, Pollak noted that the BLS reported that the private sector only added 96,000 jobs, marking a slowdown from the pace of job growth over the last two years.

Industries like mining and manufacturing are struggling. Mining employment fell by 5,600 jobs and manufacturers have seen a marked slowdown in job creation, with only 3,000 jobs added in August. “In 2018, manufacturing job growth exceeded 10,000 jobs in 11 of 12 months, but this year job growth has been below 10,000 or even negative in six of eight months,” Pollak said. “Trade policy uncertainty and a global manufacturing slowdown seem to have brought the 2017-2018 manufacturing boom to a halt.”

The retail sector lost 11,000 jobs in August, continuing a trend of month-over-month declines for the seventh consecutive month. “Despite strong consumer spending, increasing labor costs and the rise of e-commerce are keeping retail hiring down even as we begin to enter the holiday hiring season,” Zhao said. “We’ll be watching the next few reports for signs that the holiday retail hiring season has slowed or that the latest round of tariffs are having a larger effect on the retail industry.”

Juiced by Census Hires

U.S. jobs data is now—and will for some time be—inflated by a temporary spike in government hiring for 2020 Census workers. The federal government added 28,000 workers (excluding U.S. Post Office hires) to its payrolls in August. The majority of those—25,000 temporary workers—will go door-to-door over the next several weeks to verify addresses ahead of the 2020 count.

The Census Bureau expects to hire about 40,000 people for this preliminary duty and about 500,000 workers next year for the actual canvassing.

Unemployment Stays Low

The BLS data showed that the national unemployment rate remained below 4 percent for the 18th consecutive month. The number of unemployed people held at 6 million.

“The unemployment rate remains near its lowest level in 50 years, again signaling the strength of the labor market for workers as the number of job openings continues to exceed the number of unemployed workers,” Zhao said.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) rose from 1.1 million to 1.2 million in August and accounted for 20.6 percent of the unemployed.

The U-6 unemployment rate—a broader measure capturing both the unemployed, underemployed and those too discouraged to seek work—continued its long decline and held at 7.3 percent for the second month in a row. There were 467,000 discouraged workers in August, about the same as a year ago.

“There are still more discouraged workers than we would expect, given the low unemployment rate,” Pollak said. “Discouraged workers are those who are out of work but have not applied for a job in the past four weeks because they think there are none available or none for which they qualify,” she explained. “If there were fewer discouraged workers, labor force participation and employment rates would be higher, and more vacancies would be filled.”

Wages Inch Up

Average hourly earnings increased 11 cents to $28.11, following 9-cent gains in both June and July. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.2 percent.

“At this point in the expansion, we’d expect wage growth to pick up, but it is continuing to stall,” said Nick Bunker, a Washington, D.C.-based economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “Wage growth continues to be strongest for workers in lower-wage industries.”

SOURCE: Maurer, R. (06 September 2019) “US Jobs increase by 130,000 in August” (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/bls-hr-jobs-unemployment-august-2019.aspx