National job growth disappoints in September

The USA has experienced soft patches in job growth before in this expansion, and officials have been expecting job growth to slow from its quick pace earlier this year and last.

Policymakers are given a year expected the affect of the rising dollar, falling oil prices and other outside factors to disappear, clearing the horizon for an interest rate hike.

Reuters said the August and September job figures marked the smallest two-month gain in employment in more than a year. Average wages dropped by 1 cent, to $25.09 hourly.

Also, the average work week slipped to 34.5 hours from 34.6 hours, possibly signaling slower hiring in the months ahead. “The U.S economy is really buckling under the pressure of a global economic slowdown”.

It’s unclear which way the September data will influence central bank policy makers.

Now that modest momentum seems to have stalled altogether. Non-Farm Payrolls for August were downwardly revised from 173,000 to 136,000.

Today, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the USA economy added only 142,000 jobs in September. The odds of any increase in rates this month slid below 10pc, according to market data.

Job gains have averaged 198,000 a month this year, a solid total, but below last year’s average of 260,000. In September, job gains occurred in health care and information, while employment in mining continued to decline.

Wage growth – which has been stagnant for years – remained at 2.2 percent.

Lacklustre United States jobs growth has stoked concerns over the strength of the U.S. economy and could push back expectations for a widely-anticipated rate hike.

The Fed has planned the liftoff for this year, and Fed chief Janet Yellen said recently that the timetable remained on track, but more improvement was needed in labor market conditions.

“The US economy is alive and kicking”, said Phil Lachowycz, an economist at Fathom Consulting in London.

“If we were going to have every report like that”, she said, “the Federal Reserve would not raise rates”. In theory, wages should be moving higher than they actually are based on simple supply and demand. It’s just hard to say anything more concrete than that.

That hasn’t been the case, however. Unemployment for the group was at 4.7 percent in August. Professional and business services added 31,000, which was substantially lower than the 45,000 mark delivered in recent months. And that besides, 140,000 jobs a month should still be enough to bring unemployment down when, due to our aging workforce, we probably only need 80,000 now to keep things from getting worse.