Employers Add 162,000 Jobs in August as Unemployment Holds at 4.1%

U.S. employers added 162,000 jobs in August, well above the 56,000 economists had expected, and the unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The gain compares with a prior 12-month average of 31,000 a month, the agency said. About 7.0 million people were unemployed.

Revisions helped too. June was revised up by 11,000 to a gain of 31,000, and July was revised up by 44,000 to a gain of 21,000, so employment for the two months is 55,000 higher than first reported, the bureau said. Fox Business reported that private employers added 127,000 jobs against an estimate of 45,000, and that government added 35,000, led by local governments, which added 50,000, including 42,000 in education. Federal employment fell by 5,000 and state employment by 10,000.

The gains were concentrated in a few industries. Food services and drinking places added 59,000 jobs, far above their 12-month monthly average of 12,000. Construction added 22,000 and manufacturing 16,000, which the bureau noted is up 58,000 since its December 2025 low. Health care added 13,000, a slowdown from a 32,000 monthly average over the past year, and information lost 23,000.

Pay and hours edged up. Average hourly earnings for private employees rose 10 cents to $37.75, up 3.1 percent from a year earlier, which was above the 3 percent forecast, the bureau and Fox Business reported. The average workweek rose 0.1 hour to 34.4 hours. Labor force participation edged up to 61.6 percent but is down 0.5 percentage point since January, and the share of adults with jobs was 59.1 percent. The number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more was 1.9 million, or 27 percent of the unemployed, while the number working part time because they could not find full-time work fell by 414,000 to 4.4 million.

The report matters because of the Federal Reserve. Its benchmark rate sits in a range of 3.5 percent to 3.75 percent, and its next meeting is in mid-September. After the report, the market-implied probability of a quarter-point rate increase rose to 60.4 percent from 49.4 percent the day before, according to the CME FedWatch tool cited by Fox Business. Ellen Zentner of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management said an upside surprise “will likely ramp up concerns about a rate hike, but that outcome is in the hands of next week’s inflation numbers.” Adam Schickling of Vanguard said the report “is unlikely to materially change the Federal Reserve’s outlook on its own.”

Politics entered quickly. President Donald Trump urged the Fed to lower rates, Fox Business reported, while Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, said workers are not benefiting from the economy and that inflation has outpaced wage growth.

Stocks were lower in mid-morning trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down about 0.5 percent, Fox Business reported. The bureau’s next employment report is due Oct. 2.