5 key takeaways from the August jobs report

Friday's report from the government suggests that the Fed may find it a little easier to bring the economy in for a soft landing. Key to that daunting task is seeing hiring ease a bit — enough, anyway, to reduce the pressure on employers to raise pay. When they hand out raises, businesses typically increase prices for their customers to offset their higher labor costs, thereby feeding inflation.

Normally, an uptick the joblessness would be sobering news, even cause for worry. Not now.

The unemployment rate rose last month to 3.7% from 3.5%, which had tied a 50-year low. But the increase in August was welcome: The number of Americans either working or looking for work surged by 786,000 in August, the biggest one-month jump since January. And their share of the population — the so-called labor force participation rate — rose to 62.4% last month, its highest level since March.

Last month's jobs gains were spread broadly across industries. Retailers added 44,000. Healthcare gained 48,000, including nearly 15,000 at hospitals.

Factories added 22,000 jobs despite a slowing global economy, a consumer shift away from manufactured goods and toward services like restaurant meals and a stronger dollar that makes U.S.-made goods pricier overseas.

The average workweek slipped slightly last month to 34.5 hours. Those figures haven't changed much this year even as employers have complained about a worker shortage.

So why aren't they assigning more hours to the workers they have on hand?

An increase in the unemployment rate of Black Americans last month couldn't be explained by an influx into the labor force.

The number of Black people working or looking for work fell by 51,000. And their labor participation rate dipped from 62% in July to 61.8% last month, the lowest point since December. The number of Black Americans reporting that they had jobs fell by 131,000 last month. And the number saying they were unemployed rose by 79,000.