National job growth falls short in August

ROMBEL ON BUSINESS

U.S. employers added 142,000 net jobs to their payrolls in August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday.

That was far short of the 225,000 jobs that economists were expecting on average, according to Yahoo Finance data.

It also was the lowest monthly job-gain total of 2014 and ended a streak of six straight months where national payrolls rose by 200,000 or more jobs.

Still, the U.S. unemployment rate fell 6.1 percent in August from 6.2 percent in July.

But that may be because more people dropped out of the labor force.

The number of people not in the labor force increased by 268,000 in August to a record of nearly 92.3 million people, according to the BLS data.

The labor-force participation rate fell to 62.8 percent from 62.9 percent and is again hovering at 36-year-lows.

On the positive side, average hourly earnings increased to $24.53 in August from $24.47 in July and $24.03 in August 2013, the BLS data shows. That equates to 2.1 percent annual wage growth, a slight uptick from recent months.

Average weekly hours worked remained stable at 34.5 hours.

Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com