Today, the Labor Department will release its estimates for August job creation. Economists polled by Bloomberg’s have the jobless rate ticking down slightly, from 6.2 to 6.1 percent, and payroll growth coming in at 230,000 additional jobs.
August Jobs Day
Justin Sullivan
That would make it the seventh straight month of job growth over 200,000 (assuming June and July’s estimates are not revised below that threshold), a feat not matched since 1997. Below is a look at the latest run of jobs numbers.
All of that is encouraging, but it's only one sign of an improvement for America's workers. Despite better jobs numbers, economists like Fed Chair Janet Yellen are wondering when a tightening labor market market will start boosting paychecks, as employers' demand for labor further whittles away the massive supply of people looking for work. Indeed, in an August speech in Jackson Hole, Yellen said slow-growing wages — growing at a rate of around 2 percent in recent years — may be a sign that the labor market is in fact worse than the current unemployment rate suggests.
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By Danielle Kurtzleben
By Danielle Kurtzleben
