US payrolls rose 162,000 in August and unemployment held at 4.1 percent

Total nonfarm payroll employment in the United States rose by 162,000 in August and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on 4 September.

The household survey put the labour force at 169.777 million, up 683,000 on the month. Employment in that survey rose 569,000 to 162.746 million. The participation rate increased 0.2 point to 61.6 percent. The employment-population ratio rose 0.2 point to 59.1 percent. The number of unemployed people was 7.031 million, little changed. Long-term unemployed, out of work 27 weeks or more, stood at 1.9 million.

Private payrolls rose 127,000 to 135.752 million. Government added 35,000 to 23.323 million. The Joint Economic Committee's rundown put total nonfarm jobs at 159.075 million. Over the year from August 2025, payrolls are up 603,000. Average hourly earnings were 3.3 percent higher than a year earlier.

Where the jobs were

Food services and drinking places added 59,000 jobs, against a 12-month average monthly gain of 12,000. Leisure and hospitality as a whole added 62,000. State and local government, including local education, added about 40,000. The information industry lost 23,000. Financial activities lost 11,000.

Among groups, the unemployment rate for Asian workers fell to 3.2 percent. The teenage rate rose to 14.1 percent, reversing most of July's drop. Adult men were at 4.0 percent, adult women at 3.5 percent, White workers at 3.7 percent, Black workers at 6.0 percent and Hispanic workers at 4.8 percent. The broad U-6 measure, which adds underemployment, fell 0.2 point to 7.7 percent.

Why the print matters this month

July's first estimate had been soft enough to raise talk of a stall. The department revised that month higher. August's 162,000 is a mid-range number, not a boom and not a stall. It arrives as the Federal Reserve weighs a rate cut later in September and as diesel in the United States has just printed a record $5.85 a gallon on the Iran-war disruption to fuel markets.

A labour market that adds jobs in restaurants and local schools while information and finance shrink is a market still hiring at the low-wage, public-facing end and shedding at the white-collar end. Participation ticking up to 61.6 percent means some of the people who had left the count came back. That is useful for the Fed if wage growth stays near 3.3 percent. It is less useful if freight costs keep rising with diesel.

The establishment and household surveys disagreed in the usual way: payrolls up 162,000, household employment up 569,000. Traders will use the payroll figure. The household jump is the one that lifted participation. Both can be true in a single month. Neither tells the Fed what diesel at $5.85 will do to hours in September.