The U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs in August according to the latest jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Friday, but the unemployment rate surged to 3.8 percent, more than the 3.5 percent that was expected.
Payroll employment increases by 187,000 in August; unemployment rate rises to 3.8% https://t.co/ZwrVfLviqL #JobsReport #BLSdata
— BLS-Labor Statistics (@BLS_gov) September 1, 2023
Despite the economy adding 187,000 jobs — slightly more than estimated — BLS said the number of unemployed Americans increased by 514,000 in August to a total of 6.4 million.
By those numbers, Americans and the workforce are worse off now than they were one year ago when the unemployment rate was 3.7 percent and there were 400,000 fewer unemployed Americans.
In more bad news, the August jobs report saw BLS revise its data from June and July, saying there were actually 110,000 fewer jobs added than were reported in those months over the summer.
August also saw an increase in the number of Americans who have been unemployed less than five weeks (2.2 million) and the number of Americans unemployed for 27 weeks or more (1.3 million).
AUGUST JOBS REPORT: "Unemployment rate goes up in a big way" pic.twitter.com/pxAAtP1dqW
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 1, 2023
The workforce participation rate edged up by 0.2 percent in August to 62.8 percent which, as BLS noted, had been "flat since March."
In August, the economy saw the biggest gains for jobs in health care (71,000), leisure and hospitality (40,000), social assistance (26,000), and construction (22,000). Transportation and warehousing, however, saw a loss of 34,000 jobs over the month.
Average wages for Americans increased 0.2 percent in August for a 4.3 percent annual increase, missing the 4.4 percent estimate and putting wage growth just barely above the 12-month core PCE inflation number. That means Americans are still not likely to feel the effect of wage growth in terms of their real wages and purchasing power.