STILL WORKIN’

Growth slows but unemployment still slides

Employers added fewer jobs than expected in July, but a tightening labor market helped push the unemployment rate down to 3.9 percent — matching its lowest level in nearly 18 years.

The economy added a solid 157,000 new jobs last month, its second-lowest total this year and about 30,000 fewer than analysts had anticipated, according to the Labor Dept.’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The pace of hiring cooled from the 268,000 jobs added in May and the 248,000 added in June, and came in under the average monthly gain of 215,000 new jobs this year. It was a symptom, some analysts said, of President Trump’s growing trade war.

“Uncertainty from the trade war finally comes home to roost,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG, said in a note.

“You can give business and consumers all the money in the world, but if they press the pause button on spending due to trade war uncertainty, this economy is going nowhere,” he added.

Not everyone on Wall Street blamed the tariff tiff for the small drop in job growth.

“While the ongoing trade dispute may discourage businesses to invest and hire down the road, today’s jobs report suggests the jobs market is not yet collateral damage,” Beth Ann Bovino, chief US economist at S&P Global Ratings in New York, told Reuters.

While the nine-year economic expansion continues to surge, one laggard was the pace of wage growth.

Workers made 2.7 percent more in July of this year than last year — about 7 cents, according to the BLS.

“It is clear that wage growth must increase,” US Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said in a release.

A broader measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have given up searching and those working part-time because they cannot find fulltime employment, dropped three-tenths of a percentage point to 7.5 percent, the lowest level since March 2001.

The Trump administration has imposed duties on steel and aluminum imports, provoking retaliation by US trading partners including China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union. Washington has also slapped 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports.

Beijing has fought back with matching tariffs on US exports to China. On Wednesday, Trump proposed a higher 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

The trade war intensified on Friday, with China’s Commerce Ministry proposing import tariffs on $60 billion worth of US goods and warning that it reserved the right to further countermeasures.

Manufacturing payrolls rose by 37,000 jobs in July after increasing by 33,000 in June. Construction compa- nies hired 19,000 more workers after increasing payrolls by 13,000 jobs in June. Retail payrolls rebounded by 7,100 jobs last month after losing 20,200 in June.

Education and health services added 22,000 jobs last month, the fewest since October 2017.

Transportation payrolls dropped by 1,300 jobs.