US job growth stalls in August; unemployment near 4-year high
WASHINGTON—The US job market showed significant signs of cooling in August, adding a mere 22,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3 percent, from 4.2 percent in July, despite a 0.1 percent change it marked the highest level since September 2017, outside the COVID-19 pandemic period.
Factories and construction firms shed workers. Revisions showed the economy lost 13,000 jobs in June, the first monthly losses since December 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump in 2024 suggested that deporting immigrants in the country illegally would protect “Black jobs.” But the Black unemployment rate has climbed to 7.5 percent, the highest since October 2021.
At his April tariffs announcement, Trump said, “Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already.” Since April, manufacturers have cut 42,000 jobs and builders have downsized by 8,000.
Trump said in his inaugural address that the “liquid gold” of oil would make the nation wealthy as he pivoted the economy to fossil fuels. But the logging and mining sectors—which includes oil and natural gas—have shed 12,000 jobs since January.
Crude production
While gasoline prices are lower, the Energy Information Administration in August estimated that crude oil production, the source of the wealth promised by Trump, would fall next year by an average of 100,000 barrels a day.
Consumer prices have climbed from a 2.3-percent annual increase in April to 2.7 percent in July. Electricity costs are up 4.6 percent so far this year.
The Trump White House maintains that the economy is on the cusp of breakout growth, with its new import taxes poised to raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually if they can withstand court challenges.
At a Thursday night dinner with executives and founders from companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta, Trump said the facilities being built to develop artificial intelligence would deliver “jobs numbers like our country has never seen before” at some point “a year from now.”
The White House maintained that Friday’s jobs report was an outlier in an otherwise good economy.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said the Atlanta Federal Reserve is expecting annualized growth of 3 percent this quarter, which he said would be more consistent with monthly job gains of 100,000.
‘Solid’ income growth
Hassett said inflation is low, income growth is “solid” and new investments in assets, such as buildings and equipment, will ultimately boost hiring.
But Daniel Hornung, who was deputy director of the National Economic Council in the Biden White House, said he didn’t see evidence of a coming rebound in the August jobs data.
“Pretty broad based weakening,” Hornung said. “The decline over three months in goods producing sectors like construction and manufacturing is particularly notable. There were already headwinds there and tariffs are likely exacerbating challenges.”
Stephen Moore, an economics fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and supporter of the president, said the labor market is “definitely softening,” even as he echoed Trump’s claims that the jobs numbers are not reliable.
He said the economy was adjusting to the Trumpian shift of higher tariffs and immigration reductions that could lower the pool of available workers.
“The problem going forward is a shortage or workers, not a shortage of jobs,” Moore said. “In some ways, that’s a good problem to have.”
But political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz took the contrarian view that the jobs report won’t ultimately matter for the political fortunes of Trump and his movement because voters care more about inflation and affordability.
