July’s figure was also lowered.
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August alone dropped from 173,000 to 136,000, resulting in the smallest two-month increase in job creation the country has seen in over a year.
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones indices both opened 1.5% lower in early trading, falling to 1,896 and 16,023, respectively.
The employment situation steadily improved over the next two years and began gaining momentum even more quickly in 2014, when more than half of the monthly unemployment rates were charted at 7 percent or lower. August’s reading was also revised sharply downwards from 170,000 to 135,000.
There’s no sugar coating it, this was an ugly report.
Tom Porcelli, an economist at RBC Capital Markets echoed Kinahan’s fears that the ongoing Eurozone crisis and China’s stock market crash and growth slowdown will further impact the US.
The number of employed American workers declined by 236,000, and the overall civilian labor force contracted by 350,000.
The share of the population in the work force, which includes people who have jobs or are looking for one, fell to 62.4 percent, the lowest level since 1977.
The slowdown is seen by many as evidence that economic difficulties overseas are beginning to wash up on U.S. shores. A sharp fall in exports has likely slowed growth in the July-September quarter to an annual rate of just 1.5 percent, according to economists from JPMorgan Chase.
Friday’s soft jobs numbers are unlikely to produce panic at the Federal Reserve about the health of the jobs market, but the report does reduce the likelihood the central bank will raise interest rates at its policy meeting later this month. “Don’t expect the rate hike in October“, he warned.
“There’s nothing good in this morning’s report”, said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago.
Now, this is the part where I remind you that there is a lot of randomness in a single jobs report. The 138,000 three-month average rate of private sector job growth is the lowest since February of 2011. She also believed that the Fed “will be forced to stay on hold over the remainder of the year”.
Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 167,000 per month.
The US economy added only 142,000 jobs in September, well below experts’ predictions and possibly pushing an interest-rate hike into next year.
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In another disappointing sign, average hourly earnings ticked down 1 cent to $25 09 cents, and are up 2.2% over the past year, roughly in line with the sluggish 2% pace that has prevailed through most of the recovery.
