{"id":428,"date":"2026-09-04T15:47:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T15:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/?p=428"},"modified":"2026-09-04T15:47:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T15:47:33","slug":"hiring-blew-past-expectations-in-august-jobs-report-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/?p=428","title":{"rendered":"Hiring blew past expectations in August, jobs report shows"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Sectors that added jobs in August. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(NEW YORK) — Hiring grew far more than expected in August, bouncing back from a\u00a0decline<\/span>\u00a0in employment a month earlier, according to the federal government’s monthly jobs report.<\/p>\n

Employers\u00a0added 162,000 jobs<\/span>\u00a0in August, which marked a major improvement from 23,000 jobs lost in July, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed.<\/p>\n

Hiring came in well above a monthly average gain of 31,000 jobs over the previous 12 months.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, a low level by historical standards.<\/p>\n

Employment surged in restaurants and bars, which added 59,000 jobs in August, after averaging just 12,000 jobs gained each month over the past year. Hiring also grew in manufacturing, continuing a period of steady gains since the end of last year.<\/p>\n

The fresh data demonstrated economic health, despite a bout of elevated inflation that continues to weigh on shoppers and nudge central bankers toward a possible interest rate hike.<\/p>\n

The economy has shown signs of additional strain in recent weeks, including a\u00a0bond selloff<\/span>\u00a0that threatens to raise consumer borrowing costs and a rise in oil prices amid\u00a0renewed fighting<\/span>\u00a0between the U.S. and Iran.<\/p>\n

The labor market grew at a solid pace over the first half of 2026, despite a historic\u00a0oil shock<\/span>\u00a0that has driven up fuel prices and hiked supply-chain costs for a host of other goods.<\/p>\n

The U.S. added an average of 92,000 jobs per month over the initial six months of this year,\u00a0Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/span>\u00a0data showed. That pace marks an improvement from an average of about 7,000 jobs lost per month over the second half of 2025.<\/p>\n

The Iran war drove up gasoline prices and catapulted inflation to a three-year high in May. Inflation eased in June and July, but a burst of on-again, off-again fighting in recent weeks caused crude prices to rise again.<\/p>\n

The annual inflation rate\u00a0stands<\/span>\u00a0at 3.4% as of July, the most recent month on record, putting inflation more than a percentage point above the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.<\/p>\n

The combination of elevated inflation and a fairly resilient labor market has raised the chances of an interest rate hike at the Fed’s meeting later this month, financial markets show.<\/p>\n

Investors peg the odds of a quarter-point rate hike on Sept. 16 at about 62%, according to the CME Group’s\u00a0FedWatch Tool<\/span>, a measure of market sentiment.<\/p>\n

A rate increase could help fight inflation but the move risks a slowdown in hiring. Central bankers, in turn, may examine the jobs report for information on the sturdiness of the labor market.<\/p>\n

The Fed opted to\u00a0hold interest rates steady<\/span>\u00a0at its most recent meeting in July, but central bankers appeared divided over the move. Three of the 12 members on the Fed’s policymaking board voted in favor of a rate hike, marking the largest number of dissenters casting ballots in the same direction since 2016.<\/p>\n

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, who took the helm of the central bank in May, said in recent days that it should prioritize fighting inflation.<\/p>\n

“Inflation is running above our 2% target so the Fed’s predominant focus right now should be on prices,” Warsh\u00a0said<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in remarks last week at the Fed’s annual summer gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.<\/p>\n

“If the Fed gets inflation wrong and judges the economy wrong, who gets the worst of it? Not the financial high-fliers. Hard-working Americans are the ones left to deal with inflation that is too high or jobs that suddenly appear less secure,” Warsh added.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sectors that added jobs in August. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) (NEW YORK) — Hiring grew far more than expected in August, bouncing back from a\u00a0decline\u00a0in employment a month earlier, according to the federal government’s monthly jobs report. Employers\u00a0added 162,000 jobs\u00a0in August, which marked a major improvement from 23,000 jobs lost in July, the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kcfj570am.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}