The U.S. economy added about 235,000 new jobs in August according to U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics released on Friday, falling far short of economists’ expectations of around 728,000 new jobs.
The U.S. unemployment rate fell slightly to 5.2 percent in August from 5.4 percent in July, the Bureau said.
The disappointing August jobs report comes after extensive employment gains in the previous two months. Employers added a million jobs in July and 962,000 in June, according to revised official estimates.
Overall, around 5.3 million fewer people were employed as of August than in February 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic caused widespread business shutdowns.
Comments are closed.