US employers added 142,000 jobs in August, while unemployment fell to 4.2 percent, the Department of Labor announced on Friday.
In July, U.S. employers added 114,000 jobs—far less than expected, especially when compared to the 2024 average of 203,000 monthly job gains.
During the same month, the unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent—the highest level since November 2021.
While the August numbers are better than the previous month, the latest report is not as positive as the Biden administration might have wished for.
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The report was widely considered crucial for both Wall Street and Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
This jobs report is so important because it comes right before the U.S. central bank’s September 18 announcement on interest rates, which most observers expect to include a rate cut.
Mark Hamrick, a senior economist at Bankrate, told Newsweek before the report was released: “As with the weak July reading, the Fed will not become overly focused on one month’s data… but recent softness, coupled with the recent substantial negative benchmark revisions subtracting more than 800k jobs in payrolls from April 2023 to March of this year, underscores downside risks for the economy.”
The Fed has been clear that it will be cutting interest rates, but it is not yet clear by how much.
The report is also important for Harris’ presidential campaign. The economy has proven to be among the most important issues thar Americans are concerned about as they head toward the November election.
Sixty-two percent of Americans said that the economy was the most likely issue to determine how they will vote in the November presidential election, according to a recent poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek. The poll was conducted among 2,500 eligible voters in the U.S. on August 29.
A nearly static unemployment rate in today’s report could prove to be good news for Donald Trump, who has consistently blamed the Biden administration for the higher cost of living in the U.S. in the past four years, as well as the state of the U.S. economy.
