US September job gains weaker than expected

The debt ceiling. On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned that the US would exhaust its ability to borrow on November 5 unless Congress increases the debt ceiling. Emerging economies such as Brazil and Turkey are struggling to grow at all.

Yellen has said she expected that interest rates would be raised before the end of the year if the United States economy continued to show signs of improvement.

The employment report for August was revised sharply downward, showing the economy created only 136,000 jobs, well below the 173,000 originally estimated.

The us economy added only 142,000 jobs in September, well below experts’ predictions and possibly pushing an interest-rate hike into next year. Accounting for all the people who want full-time work or are likely to rejoin the labor force, it would take about 2.7 million jobs to reduce the unemployment rate to 4.9 percent – Fed officials’ median estimate of full employment, the point beyond which inflation tends to accelerate.

Strong dollar. The value of the dollar has been rising this year, making it harder for USA manufacturers to compete. “It’s wait and see”.

“While it’s always important not to over-react to one single data release, we’ll make an exception in this case”.

Bernard Baumohl, chief economist for The Economic Outlook Group, predicts that in light of the September jobs report, a rate hike is now off the table for October, but maybe not for 2015.

There is little sign of inflationary pressure in wages.

September’s unemployment rate stayed put at 5.1%, the lowest since 2008, because of people leaving the workforce.

And as always, the jobs number was worked into the political debate du jour. “We had a great number on auto sales yesterday”, he said. The plunge in oil prices is taking a large toll on the formerly booming mining sector.

The tepid pace of hiring clouds the picture for the Fed, which is considering whether to raise rates from record lows.

However, Eric Rosengren, head of the Boston Fed, told Reuters he still expects the Fed to raise rates this year despite the “weak” jobs report. Wage growth actually dipped in September.

With the third-quarter earnings season starting next week, investors are also starting to factor in what is likely to be the biggest decline in earnings for S&P 500 companies in six years.

Other reports have suggested that while the economy in the USA overall remains sturdy, it lost some steam on a number of fronts over the past few months. Gapen notes that the threats from overseas resemble earlier periods in the economic recovery when anxiety about Europe’s financial crisis slowed hiring and roiled US markets. “This is something that is more of a soft patch”, rather than a “meaningful recession risk”.

Jobs in low-wage industries-such as accommodation and food services, temporary help services, retail trade, and long-term health care, account for almost two-fifths of all new jobs added since the labor market bottomed out in February 2010.

Central banks in China and Europe could take further steps this year to stimulate growth. But they hinted they might act this year if data showed an uptick in growth.