Bloomberg News/Landov A job seeker views a mobile device while in line to speak with representatives during a Catalyst Career Group job fair in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018.
The numbers: The United States created 201,000 new jobs in August, keeping the unemployment rate at an 18-year low and generating the fastest increase in worker pay since the end of the Great Recession.
Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 200,000 increase in new nonfarm jobs.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, was unchanged at 3.9%, the Labor Department said Friday.
The increase in hiring in August was another solid gain that reflects broad strength in an economy that accelerated in the spring and showed little sign of slowing down toward the end of summer.
Read: Don’t believe stats showing zero gains for workers, Trump White House says
The biggest news in the August employment report was a sharp increase in pay. The average wage paid to American workers rose by 10 cents, or 0.4%, to $27.16 an hour.
What’s more, the yearly rate of pay increases climbed to 2.9% from 2.7%, marking the highest level since June 2009.
What happened: White-collar professional firms filled 53,000 positions, bringing the total created over the past 12 months to more than half a million. These are the fastest growing jobs in the country.
Health-care providers hired 33,000 people, transport firms added 20,000 jobs and construction companies hired 23,000 workers.
Employment fell by 3,000 in manufacturing, the first decline in 13 months. U.S. tariffs and a scarcity of skilled laborers may finally be taking their toll.
Retailers also cut jobs.
Employment gains for July and June, meanwhile, were revised down by a combined 50,000, the Labor Department said Friday.
So far this year, the economy has produced an average of 207,000 new jobs a month, up from 182,000 in the same period in 2017.
Big picture: The economy surged in the spring and is still growing rapidly as the fall approaches. Most companies are hiring and layoffs have tumbled to a nearly 50-year low.
Read: Jobless claims fall to 203,000. They haven’t been this low since Dec. 6, 1969
Aside from a shortage of skilled labor, companies say their biggest problem is coping with a spate of higher U.S. and foreign tariffs that have raised the cost of key materials such as steel and lumber and made it harder to obtain supplies.
Read: Most U.S. companies grow at sizzling pace in August despite tariffs, ISM survey finds
The Federal Reserve is also raising U.S. interest rates, though rates are still low enough that it’s not bothering businesses all that much. The central bank had adopted a gradualist approach because inflation is still relatively tame, though the Fed would act more aggressively if wage growth finally surged.
Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.08% and the S&P 500 SPX, -0.37% were set to open lower in Friday trades, with premarket losses extending after the report. The stock market has sputtered this week owing to lack of progress in trade talks between the U.S. and Canada after an initial burst of optimism.
The 10-year Treasury yield TMUBMUSD10Y, +1.74% rose to 2.91%, in a reaction to the wage growth in the report.
