August 2017 employment: US adds 156,000 jobs

According to ‘The Employment Situation‘ report released by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate in the United States hovered around 4.4%, while the economy added 156,000 jobs, in August. The report also indicated that the number of unemployed persons in the U.S. remained stable at 7.1 million.

After declining earlier in the year, the unemployment rate has been either 4.3 or 4.4 percent since April.

Hurricane Harvey – which caused catastrophic flooding in Texas – had no discernible effect on the employment and unemployment data for the August jobs report as the household and establishment survey data collection was largely completed prior to the storm

The labor force participation rate, at 62.9 percent, was unchanged in August and has shown little movement on net over the past year. The employment-population ratio, at 60.1 percent, was little changed over the month and thus far this year.

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.1 percent), adult women (4.0 percent), teenagers (13.6 percent), Whites (3.9 percent), Blacks (7.7 percent), Asians (4.0 percent), and Hispanics (5.2 percent) showed little or no change in August.

The change in employment for June was revised from 231,000 to 210,000 jobs added while July was revised from 209,000 to 189,000 jobs added. With the revisions, employment gains in these two months were 41,000 jobs less than previously reported.