U.S. Job Market Shifts to Lower Gear

The labor market appears to be treading water, with employers’ desire to hire staying just ahead of the supply of workers looking for jobs.

That’s the picture that emerges from the August jobs report, released on Friday, which offered evidence that while softer than it has been in years, the landscape for employment remains healthy, with wages still growing and Americans still eager to work.

“This report does not indicate that we’re taking another step toward a recession, but we’re still seeing further signs of cooling,” said Sam Kuhn, an economist with the recruitment software company Appcast. “We’re trending more closely to a 2019 labor market, than the labor market in 2010 or 2011.”

Employers added 142,000 positions last month, the Labor Department reported. That was somewhat fewer than forecast, bringing the three-month average to 116,000 jobs after the two prior summer months were revised down significantly. Over the year before June, the monthly average was 220,000, although that number is expected to shrink when annual revisions are finalized next year.

The unemployment rate edged down to 4.2 percent, alleviating concerns that it was on a steep upward trajectory after July’s jump to 4.3 percent, which appears to have been driven by weather-related temporary layoffs.

In other signs of stability, the average workweek ticked up to 34.3 hours and wages grew 0.4 percent over the month, slightly more than economists had expected but not enough to add significant fuel to inflation.