The August jobs report showed American employers have added 96,000 jobs. Even as the economy has kept scrapping by, the unemployment rate fell to 8.1%. Hopefully, the unemployment rate will keep falling and all Americans will be able to find a job. Click below to read more.
Economists had expected an addition of 125,000 total nonfarm jobs in August, and the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 8.3 percent. The unemployment rate declined in August by two-tenths of a percent because more people left the labor force.
Bobbi Moss, senior vice president and general manager of recruitment firm Govig & Associates in Scottsdale, Ariz., an affiliate of the MRINetwork, called the report “disappointing” and “surprising to see in light of the activity, energy and results we are experiencing.”
“The jobs added were congruent with what we are experiencing – professional, technical and health with the exception of manufacturing,” she said.
Manufacturing employment fell in August by 15,000 jobs, including a drop in motor vehicles and parts by 8,000 jobs.
The government also revised the number of jobs added in June and July, reducing the total by 41,000. Even more discouraging was the news today that 400,000 people gave up looking for work in August.
In May and June, new jobless claims had been higher than earlier in the year as well.
The November presidential election has focused on the economy, which is undergoing its worst stretch of high joblessness since 1948.
GOP candidate Mitt Romney has been vilified by the Democrats for supposedly shipping jobs overseas as CEO of Bain Capital more than a decade ago. But foreign-based companies also ship jobs into the US–about 5 million Americans are employed here by foreign companies.
Bill Krueger, vice chairman of Nissan Americas, said the company is less interested in the election’s outcome and more interested in whether the U.S. will encourage engineering and manufacturing training for potential workers.
Nissan, based in Japan, employs 17,000 people in the U.S. at its three U.S. sites. The company is adding about 2,200 manufacturing jobs U.S., including 1,000 jobs in the fourth quarter to its Canton Vehicle Assembly Plant in Mississippi.
