With omens of recession being whispered about in the shadows of Wall Street, many Americans have been wary of what is to come with the economy for quite a while. Due to these rampant rumors and theories, August’s Job Report and July’s Job Opening Survey was released to an eagerly awaiting public. On the surface, the August report shows some good news with 142,000 jobs being added and unemployment dropping by 0.1%. CNN is calling this data “slightly below expectations” and that this could “be the most consequential piece of data in years,” while others are taking a much calmer tone, noting that the Federal Reserve could soften its approach to lowering interest rates later this month. The stock market itself is wobbling with the report, unsure of how to handle the news.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in August, the U.S. economy added 142,000 new Nonfarm payroll jobs. July’s numbers were revised down to 89,000. As stated above, the stock market has met the news with some up and down numbers in the market. August’s job opening report, along with July’s and June’s downwardly revised numbers, saw unemployment decrease slightly to 4.2% for the last month, causing some investors to heave sighs of relief to see some stabilization in this area. The number of jobs in the Transportation and Warehouse industries stayed roughly the same for August. As usual, we’ll have more on that industry below!
July's Job Opening and Turnover Survey
For the month of July, job openings did adjust to a lower number as they have been this summer, causing a small upset in the market. The number of job openings shifted down to 7.7 million jobs. However, job openings drastically increased for the Professional and Business Services industries by 170,000. Federal Government jobs also saw an increase by about 28,000. Jobs in Healthcare and Social Assistance and State and Local Government fell by 187,000 and 101,000 jobs respectively.
The quit rate for July stayed the same at 3.3 million, while layoffs increased to 1.8 million, causing some minor concern. These adjusted numbers for August will be interesting to see when they come out next month.
August's Jobs Report
For the month of July, Non-farm payrolls grew by 142,000. This number comes in below the average job growth of 202,000 jobs over the summer. With the Reserve meeting in the middle of September, experts believe that these “mediocre” numbers will convince them to only raise interest rates minimally, staying to, perhaps, a quarter of a percent. August’s report shows unemployment rate falling slightly to 4.2%. The labor force participation rate for August stayed the same at 62.7%.
Last month, August 2024, the Healthcare industry, which has been steadily adding small numbers of jobs every month for the past year, added another 31,000 jobs. On average, Healthcare has been picking up roughly 60,000 jobs a month for the past year, but some of those numbers have been adjusted downward, especially in July’s adjusted report. In Social Assistance, new jobs came in with another gain of 13,000, but there was also another decent sized gain in Construction (+34,000). Manufacturing employment fell again (-24,000), but there were no more drastic reductions in other industries. The Transportation and Warehousing industries have been trending up recently, but those increases were nonexistent for August.
Conclusion
The August Jobs Report and the July Job Opening and Turnover Survey came out today with growing concerns for a recession coming before the end of the year. With the market’s concern about the SAHM rule waning for the moment, there is hope that the Federal Reserve will temper their response to fears of a recession. Everyone hopes that the interest rate increase will be minimal, but there is roughly two weeks before the Reserve meets again. We will be covering their decision in our next jobs report!! Stay tuned to the LZ Blog and our Lionzone social media to see!
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Meaghan Goldberg covers recruitment and digital marketing for Lionzone. A Patterson, GA native, after graduating from both Valdosta State University and Middle Tennessee State University, Meaghan joined Lionzone in 2018 as a digital recruitment strategist before becoming the social media manager.
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