Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 187,000 in August, and the unemployment rate rose
to 3.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in
health care, leisure and hospitality, social assistance, and construction. Employment in transportation
and warehousing declined. …

Both the number of persons unemployed less than 5 weeks, at 2.2 million, and the number of longterm unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 1.3 million, edged up in August. The longterm unemployed accounted for 20.3 percent of all unemployed persons. (See table A-12.)

In August, the labor force participation rate rose by 0.2 percentage point to 62.8 percent, after being
flat since March. The employment-population ratio was unchanged over the month at 60.4 percent.
(See table A-1.)

[This is slightly better than a maintenance-level addition to the economy, although the increase in the LFPR is a good sign that more people are engaging. Earlier we saw that the number of open jobs fell to their lowest level since the pandemic, which indicates that the Great Resignation has run its course. However, the trend of large downward revisions continues in this report, shaving another 110,000 from the previous two reports. I’ll talk with Peter Grandich about this on Relevant Radio this afternoon, but there’s something very weird happening with the BLS data this year. — Ed]