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Welcome to The Hill’s Business & Economy newsletter
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Business & Economy
Business & Economy
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The Big Story
Economy loses jobs for the first time since 2020
The latest jobs report from the Labor Department is the first to register a net negative jobs month for the U.S. economy since December 2020, when the economy shed 183,000 jobs.
The report found the economy added a paltry 22,000 jobs in August, adding to concerns about the health of the economy while increasing the chances of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
It also includes further revisions to previous months, including an estimate that the economy lost 13,000 jobs in June.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3 percent, rising for the second month in a row, while the labor force participation rate increased after falling since April.
The August report increases the ratio of the number of those seeking jobs to the number of jobs open. There are now about 200,000 more people looking for work in the U.S. than there are available jobs.
It appears this is all leading to a slower growth in wages, which already have had trouble keeping up with inflation.
Rising power prices are becoming a political liability for Republicans as electricity costs outpace inflation. A recent Consumer Price Index report found electricity prices were rising at double the rate of inflation, having increased 5.5 percent over the past year.
The U.S. economy added 22,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in August, according to the first federal jobs report released since President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
