U.S. adds 201,000 jobs in August; unemployment rate steady

WASHINGTON — Nonfarm payroll employment grew by 201,000 jobs in August, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The unemployment rate remained unchanged from July at 3.9 percent, the BLS said in its Sept. 7 report.

Professional and business services was the sector that enjoyed the biggest increase, at 53,000 jobs, the report said. There also were gains in construction (23,000 jobs), wholesale trade (22,000 jobs) and transportation and warehousing (20,000 jobs).

Manufacturing, however, lost 3,000 jobs after solid gains in recent months. Retail trade also saw little change in August, the BLS said.

Payroll services firm ADP Inc. released its own monthly jobs report Sept. 6, in which it said private sector payroll employment increased by 163,000 jobs in August.

More than two-thirds of the new jobs, 111,000 in all, were created in medium-sized businesses (50 to 499 employees), ADP said. Employment in large businesses (500 employees or more) grew by 31,000 jobs during the month, and in small businesses (one to 49 employees) by 21,000 jobs, it said.

Job creation in August was divided into 139,000 in service-providing sectors and 24,000 in goods-producing sectors, according to ADP. The report said manufacturing added 19,000 jobs during the month, compared with 38,000 in professional/business services, 21,000 in trade/transportation/utilities and 5,000 in construction.

Small business plans to create new jobs and job openings reached a 45-year high in August, but small business owners still had trouble finding qualified applicants, according to the Monthly Jobs Reports from the National Federation for Independent Business (NFIB) released Sept. 6.

The NFIB report said 62 percent of small business owners tried to hire new workers in August, up 3 percent from July, but 89 percent of those owners said they could find no or very few qualified applicants.

Of the survey respondents, 25 percent said finding qualified workers was their biggest business problem, up from 23 percent in July, the NFIB said.

"The real strength in hiring comes from the industries where wages are above average — construction, manufacturing and wholesale trades," said NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg. "Filling those job openings would boost the level of output for the economy."

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) was philosophical about the employment results despite the sag in manufacturing jobs.

"It's far too early to say how much of this overall factory job stall has resulted from typical summer slowdowns, emerging global weakness, exchange rate effects or recent tariff changes," said AAM President Scott Paul.

Mr. Paul called on Congress to expedite action on infrastructure improvement and on the Trump administration to designate China as a currency manipulator in the Treasury Department report on exchange rates due out in October.