Count this as another miss on expectations, and at a particularly poor time for an incumbent administration seeking another term. Economists expected a mediocre return to normalcy in the job market for August after July’s report showed only a shocking 89,000 jobs added. The consensus set the mark at 161K, a figure that barely would be above economy-maintenance level.
Instead, the US added 142,000 jobs in August — an improvement, but not an impressive one:
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in construction and health care. …
Both the unemployment rate, at 4.2 percent, and the number of unemployed people, at 7.1 million, changed little in August. These measures are higher than a year earlier, when the jobless rate was 3.8…
