NEW YORK, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by just 22,000 in August, a sharp slowdown from a revised July increase of 79,000, showed a report released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department.
The unemployment rate in August jumped to 4.3 percent, a nearly four-year high.
Economists had expected a job growth of 75,000 and an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent in August, local media reported Friday.
Average hourly earnings increased 0.3 percent month on month in August, but the annual gain of 3.7 percent was slightly below the forecast of 3.8 percent.
The report adds to recent signs of labor market weakening, paving the way for rate cuts by the Federal Reserve in September and later this year, experts said.
The August report is the first such report released since U.S. President Donald Trump fired former Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer following the release of a weak July jobs report a month ago. Trump claimed then that the job growth data had been manipulated. ■
