by Calculated Risk on 9/04/2015 08:42:00 AM

From the BLS:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 173,000 in August, and the unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care and social assistance and in financial activities. Manufacturing and mining lost jobs.
...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from +231,000 to +245,000, and the change for July was revised from +215,000 to +245,000. With these revisions, employment gains in June and July combined were 44,000 more than previously reported.
...
In August, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 8 cents to $25.09, following a 6-cent gain in July. Hourly earnings have risen by 2.2 percent over the year.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows the monthly change in payroll jobs, ex-Census (meaning the impact of the decennial Census temporary hires and layoffs is removed - mostly in 2010 - to show the underlying payroll changes).

Total payrolls increased by 173 thousand in August (private payrolls increased 140 thousand).

Payrolls for June and July were revised up by a combined 44 thousand.

This graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.

In August, the year-over-year change was over 2.9 million jobs.

That is a solid year-over-year gain.


The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.

The Labor Force Participation Rate was unchanged in August at 62.6%. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force.   A large portion of the recent decline in the participation rate is due to demographics.

The Employment-Population ratio increased to 59.4% (black line).

I'll post the 25 to 54 age group employment-population ratio graph later.

The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.

The unemployment rate decline in August to 5.1%.

This was well below expectations of 223,000 jobs, however revisions were up, the unemployment rate declined significantly, and there was some wage growth ... overall a decent report.

I'll have much more later ...