We read the report so you don’t have to. Here’s what the August Jobs Report said — and be warned, it wasn’t terribly exciting. There were only 96.000 jobs added to the economy. On a positive note, the unemployment rate went down from 8.3% to 8.1%.
Where did we see growth?
- Hospitality (food services) added 28,000 jobs
- Professional and Technical Services added 27,000 jobs
- Healthcare added 17,000 jobs
- Utilities added 9,000 jobs
- Finance and Insurance added 11,000 jobs
Manufacturing experienced a decline of 15,000 jobs which I was surprised by given all the talk of the addition of manufacturing jobs and Detroit doing so well as a result of the auto industry. I did learn that the motor industry laid off fewer workers than usual in July and fewer workers were brought back in August due to their summer closings—so that could be why there weren’t as many manufacturing jobs added in August—they didn’t let as many people go.
Some theories as to why there weren’t more jobs added—The summer is usually a slow time as many people take vacation and are out of the workplace which can contribute to the slow growth of hiring. Additionally, the upcoming presidential election will have much influence on the number of workers added now and in the coming months.
So what do we predict to see going forward? Based on the number of jobs we’ve seen posted to Nexxt in the last three months, we predict that the total number of hires will slow as we enter the early fall months. However, we will see jobs added to the Healthcare & Medical, Information Technology, and Retail fields.
So there you have it, what happened in August and perhaps why.
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