Payrolls rose less than projected in September, wages stagnated and the jobless rate was unchanged as people left the workforce, signaling the global slowdown and financial-market turmoil are rippling through the world’s largest economy.
The addition of 142,000 jobs followed a revised 136,000 gain the prior month that was lower than previously estimated, a Labor Department report showed Friday in Washington.
The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 96 economists called for a 201,000 advance. The jobless rate held at 5.1 per cent, and wage growth was little changed from the prior month.
The weak report vindicates the Federal Reserve’s decision to delay an interest-rate increase last month.
Cooling overseas markets, a stronger dollar and lower oil prices that are hampering exports and manufacturing raise the risk that employers will hesitate before taking on more staff. “This is a little more evidence that things are perhaps stepping down a bit,” said Michael Feroli, chief US economist at JPMorgan Chase in New York.
“A lot of global hopes were pinned on the US outperforming, so this may reverberate around the world as policy makers look to the US.”
Stock-index futures slumped and yields on Treasury securities dropped as the report raised concern the US economy was slowing.
The contract on the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index maturing in December dropped 1.1 percent to 1,895.1 at 9.01am in New York, while the yield on the benchmark 10-year note declined to 1.94 per cent from 2.04 per cent late on Thursday.
Bloomberg
