Government reports 173,000 new jobs created in August

Daily Kos Staff Emeritus

Friday September 04, 2015 · 5:58 AM PDT

2015/09/04 · 05:58

For the 59th straight month in August, new jobs were added to the U.S. economy. It was the 66th month that private jobs were in the plus column. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seasonally adjusted, the economy created 140,000 new, private-sector full- and part-time non-farm jobs for the month. Governments at all levels added 33,000 new jobs. It was a slower pace than economists surveyed ahead of time by Bloomberg had expected. Their consensus was for 215,000.

The unemployment rate fell more than expected because of fewer people in the workforce.

It's important to note that these estimates are quite soft. The BLS points out that the "confidence level" is plus or minus 105,000. That means the "real" number of new jobs created in August was not 173,000 but fell in a range between 68,000 and 278,000. That range explains why every month the BLS revises numbers from the two previous months as a result of having better information. This month, the BLS revised its originally reported June job numbers from 231,000 to 245,000 and July numbers from 215,000 also to 245,000. The number of people officially unemployed fell to 8.03 million.

The official unemployment rate—in BLS jargon U3—fell to 5.1 percent. The bureau also estimates unemployment and underemployment each month under the label of U6. This includes people with no job at all, part-time workers who want a full-time job but can't find one, and many "discouraged" workers. That fell in August 0.1 to 10.3 percent.

The civilian workforce dropped 41,000, after having risen 69,000 in July. The employment-population ratio rose slightly to 59.4 percent, and labor force participation was unchanged at 62.6 percent.

Another measurement the BLS makes each month is the job situation for Americans aged 25-54, people in their "prime working years." The employment-population ratio for that group reached a high point of 81.9 percent in April 2000. By the time the Great Recession officially began in December 2007, it had fallen to 79.7 percent, hitting bottom at 74.8 percent in November 2010. The rate has been rising slowly ever since. In August, it rose from 77.1 percent to 77.2 percent.

Hourly earnings have risen 2.2 percent over the past year.

This shows the fall in the employment to population ratio of people in their "prime working years." Still down 3 percentage points from the pre-recession period.

For more details about today's jobs report, please continue reading below the fold.

Key aspects of the report:

Hours & Wages

• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees 5 cents to $21.07 in August.
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls rose slightly to 34.6 hours in August.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose 8 cents to $25.09
• The manufacturing workweek remained unchanged at 40.8 hours.
• The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls was unchanged at 33.7 hours.

Among other news in the August job report:

Demographic breakdown of official (U3) seasonally adjusted jobless rate:

• African American: 9.5 percent, up from 9.1 percent in July
• Latino: 6.6 percent, down from 6.8 percent in July
• Asian (not seasonally adjusted): 3.5 percent, down from 4.0 percent in July
• American Indian (data not collected on monthly basis)
• White: 4.4 percent, down from 4.6 percent in July
• Adult women (20 and older): 4.7 percent, down from 4.9 percent in July
• Adult Men (20 and older): 4.7 percent, down from 4.8 percent in July
• Teenagers (16-19): 16.9 percent, up from 16.2 percent in July

Duration of unemployment:

• Less than five weeks: 2.095 million, down from 2.488 million in July
• 5 to 14 weeks: 2.374 million, up from 2.257 million in July
• 15 to 26 weeks: 1.250 million, up from 1.188 million in July
• 27 weeks and more: 2.187 million, up from 2.180 million in July

Job gains and losses in selected categories:

• Professional services: + 33,000
• Transportation & warehousing : + 7,300
• Leisure & hospitality: + 33,000
• Information: - 7,000
• Health care & social assistance: + 56,400
• Retail trade: + 11,200
• Construction: + 3,000
• Manufacturing: - 17,000

Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in August for the previous 10 years.

August 2005: + 196,000
August 2006: + 185,000
August 2007: - 17,000
August 2008: - 259,000
August 2009: - 217,000
August 2010: - 39,000
August 2011: + 128,000
August 2012: + 188,000
August 2013: + 256,000
August 2014: + 213,000
August 2015: + 173,000

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Government reports 173,000 new jobs created in August

Comments are closed on this story.