Hiring picked up in Aug. as pay surged
201K jobs added, wages rise at fastest rate in 9 years
WASHINGTON — The pace of hiring in the United States quickened in August, and wages grew at their fastest pace in nine years — evidence that employers remain confident despite the Trump administration’s ongoing conflicts with its trading partners.
The economy added a strong 201,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate stayed at 3.9 percent, near an 18year low, the government said Friday in its monthly jobs report.
Taken as a whole, the data pointed to a job market that remains resilient after nearly a decade of economic growth — the second-longest such stretch in U.S. history — and with tariffs and counter-tariffs on imports and exports looming over U.S. employers that rely on global trade.
The economy is expanding at a healthy pace, fueled by tax cuts, confident consumers, greater business investment in equipment and more government spending. Growth reached 4.2 percent at an annual rate in the April-June quarter, the fast- Unemployment rate remains at 3.9 percent, near an 18-year low, Friday’s jobs report says. est pace in four years.
“I view this as the strongest job market in a generation,” said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor, a career website.
Even while reporting a robust job gain for August, the Labor Department re- vised sharply down its estimate of hiring in June and July. The government says employers added 50,000 fewer jobs in those two months combined than it had previously estimated.
But the 201,000 job gain in August was nearly equal to the average gain of 196,000 over the prior 12 months, evidence of how consistent job growth remains.
Average hourly pay jumped 0.4 percent in August and increased 2.9 percent compared with a year earlier. That’s the fastest annual gain since June 2009, when the Great Recession ended.
Still, rising inflation, which also reached 2.9 percent in July from a year earlier, has offset that gain.
But most economists said they saw the pay increase as an encouraging sign that the low unemployment rate is compelling more employers to raise pay in order to compete for workers.
“It looks like we’re finally seeing that acceleration in wage growth that we’ve been waiting for,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services. “It’s good news for workers’ paychecks, it’s good news for consumers, and it’s good news for the overall economy.”
The rising wage and jobs data make it a near-certainty that the Federal Reserve will raise short-term interest rates when it meets later this month, economists said.
Most Fed watchers also expect another rate hike in December and perhaps two more next year.
The jobs report showed that professional and business services, a category that includes both higher-paying fields such as engineering and accounting and lowerpaying temp jobs, led August’s job growth with 53,000 added positions.
Health care providers added 33,000 and transportation and warehousing companies 20,200, the most in nearly a year.
Retailers cut 6,000 positions, a surprising drop given reports of strong sales by such retailers as Target, Walmart and Best Buy.