The United States added 169,000 jobs and unemployment dipped in August, though the numbers fell short of most experts’ expectations. With the uncertainty over Syria and the onset of Obamacare, it’s unclear how the Federal Reserve will respond to the latest developments.
It was a mixed bag Friday morning when the latest labor report was released. Jobs were up, but so was unemployment. And both Republicans and Democrats were moving to capitalize politically on the mixed message. One bright point, though, was that manufacturing jobs are growing faster than at any point in almost 30 years.
New economic reports out Thursday morning had good news about the American economy — but not good enough to really push down the nation’s unemployment rate. Experts say we’ll need much stronger growth, stronger than they’re forecasting for the year, to see large and sustained declines in unemployment.