The August 2017 Jobs Report was released by the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning, Friday, September 1. This was a surprisingly mediocre report, showing only 156,000 new jobs, and it did not meet the pundits' estimates of 180,000 to 200,000 new jobs. The unemployment rate inched up to 4.4%, in the same range that it has been in since April.
Hurricane Harvey influence?
Some suggest that the jobs numbers may represent a turn-around from a strong Obama economy to a weaker Trump economy, but we won't know that for a few months.
Jobs numbers are compiled as of the week containing the 12th day of the month, so this report was not impacted by Hurricane Harvey, but the next 1-2 reports may well be. Jobs numbers did not go down after Hurricane Katrina back in 2005, but they did seem to stall.The economy has been adding jobs consistently for 7 1/2 years now. In fact, in 45 of the 83 months between early 2010 and the end of the Obama Presidency, 200,000 or more jobs were added.
Despite this month's slow down and minor increase in the unemployment rate, job reports under Trump (since February) seem to continue the trend of consistent addition of jobs and slow but generally consistent decline in the unemployment rate.
August 2017 Job Report Highlights:
- The economy added 156,000 jobs, a below average number of new jobs, and the unemployment rate increased slightly by 0.1% to 4.4% due to people entering the labor force but not immediately finding jobs.
