WASHINGTON — U.S. job growth slowed to its lowest level of the year in August, a stumble for labor markets that had delivered a string of steady gains over the previous six months despite uneven economic growth.
Nonfarm employment advanced a seasonally adjusted 142,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday. That was below economists’ expectations of an increase of around 225,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate, obtained via a separate survey of households, ticked down to a seasonally adjusted 6.1 percent in August from 6.2 percent in July.
Payroll gains have averaged 207,000 over the past three months. Revisions to earlier estimates for June and July showed that the economy added 28,000 fewer jobs than initially reported. For the first eight months of the year, the U.S. has added some 215,000 jobs a month, the best annual pace since hiring averaged 265,000 jobs every month in 1999.
“The main point of today’s report … is it underscores our long-held view of growth without acceleration,” said Steve Blitz, chief economist at ITG Investment Research Inc.
Some economists cautioned against reading too much into the headline, noting a tendency in recent years for the August survey to understate job gains initially. Other indicators of the labor market, including jobless-claims data or manufacturing-firm surveys, have hinted at improvement.
Does Friday’s report “signal a shift in the labor market? We’re skeptical,” said Neil Dutta, head of U.S. economics at Renaissance Macro Research LLC.
Stronger hiring should boost consumer confidence and the broader economy by lifting spending, but the U.S. economy so far has enjoyed uneven gains from broad-based job growth. While car sales in August enjoyed their best month since January 2006, home sales have been running below their year-earlier levels. Construction of rental housing has outpaced for-sale homes.
Friday’s report could take some pressure off the Federal Reserve, which has been looking for such evidence that excess slack is being whittled away amid a debate over when it might need to increase interest rates.
