The United States added 1.4 million jobs in August as the economy slowly recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. As the number of new jobs increased, the number of first time jobless claims fell to the lowest total since the pandemic began, with 881,000 people filing for unemployment last month. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.4%, marking the first time since March it has been under 10%.
While the numbers are trending in the right direction, economists are cautious about the recovery.
"We are still moving in the right direction, and the pace of the jobs recovery seems to have picked up, but it still looks like it will take a while – and likely a vaccine – before we get back close to where we were at the beginning of this year," said Tony Bedikian, head of global markets at Citizens Bank. "We continue to be optimistic that the economy has turned a corner and that we'll continue to see steady progress."
The federal government was responsible for about one-quarter of the total gains in August after hiring 344,000 workers, including 238,000 temporary Census workers. The government is expected to hire more temporary workers in September, which should be a boon to this month's numbers. Economists are concerned about what will happen once those temporary workers are no longer needed.
"More people with more jobs is something to celebrate, but we need to be concerned about how sustainable these gains will be," said Nick Bunker, economic research director for the Indeed Hiring Lab, in emailed comments to CNN.
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